Breaking Point
by Brigidforest
Summary: Spike is resurrected from his death to make the worst choice of his life—it’s either the lives of over nine million people or Faye’s. COMPLETE.
1. One

This is my first fan fiction story, so I hope people like it. I love the ending of bebop, it fits the series so well. BUT, this is how I imagine it could have gone if Spike had survived. So there you go, enjoy. Constructive criticism is appreciated, otherwise review if you like :) I'm trying to keep Spike in character as much as I can, but then again him surviving is totally out of character to begin with. 

Disclaimer: I don't own bebop :( I wish, but it's Watanabe's idea, and a bunch of other people hold the copyrights, so basically, it's not mine. Now on with the story.

Dec. 13 2005: ssg posted a BP soundtrack, in case you want to check it out, it's in my info page. It'll be up for only a few days, so get the songs while you can.

**Breaking Point**

---1---

He was supposed to have died. He had felt his life slipping through the cracks of his lips, his breath failing and his eyelids falling heavy into the darkness. So what happened?

_"I saved you."_

His heart stopped. The susurrus of that voice, the sweet tender tone that mellowed everything around him rang in his ears. His muscles tensed, every single part of him became paralyzed at the soft sound of her whisper. He thought he would never hear it again.

"It wasn't your time," her jaded glare poisoned him with a bitter sweetness. His hand reached towards her face, he wanted to brush the golden lock of hair that fell softly against her milky cheek.

Wait, he knew how this story ended. He could remember almost reaching Julia's door, thinking that he would die and he needed to see her again one more time. His body had given up just before his fist could pound if only once, but before he lost consciousness, he'd seen this wonderful light and Julia standing there, waiting for him. He thought he was dead. Then she nursed him and revived him, and the love he had for her was never the same again. It had been borne as obsession and now it became this pure affection, this necessity. Yes, he knew how this story ended. Wasn't she dead? He stirred and slowly opened his mouth in an attempt to say something to her.

"You shouldn't move." A different voice told him. His vision blurred slightly for a split second and when he opened his eyes again the person that watched carefully over him looked completely different. It wasn't Julia anymore. She pulled a lock of her shoulder-length chestnut hair behind her ear and began to examine him with her violet eyes. Her hands wandered about his head and chest checking the gauze and bandages. "I thought you would never wake up. You're kind of expensive to keep, you know." The woman had a few wrinkles scattered here and there on her eyes and creases around her mouth of probably endless of scowls she had given men like him. Men that got themselves all banged up for nothing. He couldn't even die properly.

"Who are you?" He managed to whisper and then gasped for breath. It hurt to talk, breathe, or think. His shins ached and his stomach felt like someone had blown a hole through it. The arms and legs felt as if they were forming a revolution against him, blood coiling in them, burning more by the minute.

"I used to be a salvation nurse. I saw you laying there dead, the Red Dragon coup, no? It seems more like you'll be needing pain killers. No worries, Mark from the local shop tips an attending at the hospital and he gets some meds and sells them. He owes me a favor, so I get them on special discount. You're lucky to be alive." She kept talking to him like that, her thoughts traveling from tangent to tangent. She reminded him of Annie oddly enough.

"Who are you?" It pained him to even open his mouth, but she hadn't answered his question.

"Oh damn, I'm sorry. I'm Celia." He nodded at her. She checked his IV and then prepped a needle she had set on the table next to him. She injected the liquid into his IV and he felt a slight tingling rush into his hand. He realized he had an oxygen mask over his mouth and patches all over his body.

"That should do it. Sorry about the ancient treatment, but I don't have the kind of money to afford better. You should be feeling better in no time. Okay, so you have to heal a whole lot, but you'll be fine soon enough." She paused for a moment smacking her lips. "You got anyone you want me to call?" He blinked several times, his brain slowly processing her question. His head rubbed on the pillow from side to side.

"No one," he answered and she eyed him carefully.

"Right then. You rest up."

* * *

Three months had passed since he first woke up and most of his wounds had already healed well enough for him to be on his own. Celia had left him only two days before then and told him that he would need to take care on his own. She was needed elsewhere, but she had left one month's rent paid until he found means to pay it or move elsewhere. Her somber purple eyes had focused on him, almost remorseful that she had to leave. The fridge and cupboards had been stocked so he wouldn't go hungry anytime soon before he healed completely. A tear began to fall down her cheek. 

Spike tried asking her more than once why she had helped him. She would grunt, then scoff, either leave the room or change the subject. If he brought it up again, she would threaten to have him starve. After a few tries, he got the hint. He was an invalid—unable to move by his own will—most of the time, so who was he to argue with the woman?

"You take care now," she said before she left. "Don't go doing anything stupid and dying. I've worked too hard. You better live until you're eighty. You should stop smoking if you want to get there." She smacked the cigarette from his hand, but waited until she left to pick it up again.

"Celia," he called for her and then fumbled around for his words. It was a long time since he had said something like that. "Thanks," he said somberly. She shook her head at this and her lips curled to a smile. She left promising him she would be back in a month to visit and make sure he wasn't dead or something. "Thanks mom." Her eyes widened at this last comment and she shook her head at him, muttering under his breath that she should have left him there to bleed to death. He chuckled. His last three months had been full of sarcastic comments like that. Sometimes he wished that he could move so he could kick her out, but she became a comfort to him.

Days and weeks passed, and solitude replaced Celia as his obnoxious companion. He hadn't gone back to bounty hunting. He didn't want to remember anything about his past. He just became an errand boy for a local shop. A black market errand boy, nevertheless, the pay supported him well enough. His routine would be the same every day. Wake up, groan at the morning sun, brush teeth, wash face, get dressed, eat a fruit (it had become customary because of Celia), and head to Mireya's Delivery.

He had thought about contacting the Bebop just briefly, but he couldn't. He just couldn't.

He stared in the mirror on this particular morning, a Sunday, about ten. Weekends quickly became the time of the week to dread. He had time to remember he was still alive, still breathing, still alone. He glared at himself in the mirror focusing on his left mechanical eye. The eye that could see the past. His breathing raced with the unhappy thoughts of his mind.

_You aren't supposed to be alive, Spiegel._

_You killed your best friend._

_All you lived for died back then. Died. You went to see if you were alive, and you aren't, you are dead!_

Cracks slithered from the impact of his knuckles against the mirror. He slumped his face forward. He had applied full force to the punch and now he just held it there, breathing hard, contemplating his existence. It had been his time to die, why was he alive? His ears became alert at the sound of his front door opening. He pulled out the gun from his pants. The gun had become his inseparable companion even in the washroom. He breathed in and with a kick the bathroom door flew open, his gun aiming straight in front of him. The sad mismatched brown eyes widened, gaping at the figure standing before him.

She cocked her head to the side. Her emerald gems staring at him with a soft expression in them. Her white milky skin glowed in the dim light of the apartment. She smiled at him, her red lips tight together, a sympathetic smile. She wore long black lose fit black pants with a maroon turtleneck shirt tucked in and held neatly in her pants by a black belt. She rolled up her long sleeves to her elbows and then ran her hand through her long wavy golden hair.

Julia.

"It's ironic," she murmured glancing to the side. Her eyes still held sympathy in them.

"How? You were dead. I saw you. I know you were." He managed to blurt out like a manic trying to gather his speedy thoughts. She glared straight at him with somber eyes.

"I know. I am dead."

"What?"

"It's ironic. You, contemplating your existence." Her voice remained calm, but serious. "I think that's why I'm here."

"No." He soughed. "No! You're dead."

"I think we've established that." She said without a hint of sarcasm, but worry instead. "Is your hand all right?" He lowered the gun and glanced down at his knuckles realizing how bruised they were, and the some of the cuts causing rivulets around his fist and toward the gun.

"I'm fine." At least, his hand would survive, but his sanity was a different story.

"It'll get swollen if you don't put ice on it." She insisted. He placed the gun on his night table and sat down on the bed holding his face in his uninjured hand.

"You're not real." His body shook violently.

"I am to you," she said. He didn't look up at her, but simply brought his legs up on the bed and curled there.

"It's just a dream."

"Isn't it all?" Her voice echoed from wall to wall. He brought his hands to his ears as tears welled up in his eyes.

"Stop it," he commanded. "Stop!"

"This has been too much for you already," she said, her voice fading out on the last words. His eyes shot up and found nothing there. They shifted to every part of the room, but it was empty once again. He closed his eyes tightly as tears streamed down his cold face. He remembered her body falling backwards in the air. Her hair fluttering then she just slumped on the floor. He ran to her. He had held her so gently like a porcelain doll with cracks about to break. Her emeralds had peered at him for a second, and her lips had asked if it was a dream.

"Yes, it's all a bad dream." He thought aloud. His mind watching her die over and over again. His body writhed in the bed, shaking violently to the point he could barely hold himself together. He reached for his gun, the tremor in his hand almost causing him to drop it. He gripped it tightly and slowly brought it to his mouth. His sobs made him choke several times and the tears streamed freely down his sallow face.

Spike Spiegel was scared. Hopelessly scared enough to want to die.

His front door gently creaked open and Celia came in holding a brown bag in her arms.

"Spike? Your front door was open," she said still not noticing Spike in the darkness. He didn't pull out the gun from his mouth, but instead watched the large woman shut the door and comment on how dark the place was until she turned around and saw him. Her aghast expression didn't stir him, but instead compelled him to cock the gun and place his finger on the trigger. Celia dropped her bag and stepped closer to him, her face contorting into anger.

"Don't even think it," she whispered, the urgent anger seeping in her eyes. Spike refused to look into her violet eyes anymore and instead closed them. His body still shook out of control and so did his hand holding his life. "I did not spend seven months nursing you back to life so you could do this." Her powerful tone made him shrink back a bit. She grabbed his hand gently and he wanted to pull the trigger at that instant, but couldn't. He saw Julia's face and heard her voice saying "I saved you." He couldn't do it. Celia carefully pulled out the gun from his mouth and pried the gun from his fingers. She took out the barrel and threw it against the wall. Spike's brown eyes focused on her with aggravation and hopelessness at the same time.

"I didn't ask for you to save me." He gasped out his trembling lips. "I didn't ask to be alive!"

"I didn't save you. People don't choose to die and they don't choose to stay alive. But they do. That's life, so get the fuck over it! I didn't save you, because you stayed alive. There's a part of you that wants to live, that needs to live." He closed his eyes again barely listening to her words.

"I saw her. She stood in front of me as if she was alive. But she's dead. She told me. Something is very wrong with me." He opened his eyes staring at Celia. Celia shook her head then went to her bag to and grabbed a small bottle out.

"Here, take two of these every time you're shaking like this." She took out two pills and placed the bottle on his night table. She handed him the two pills and his trembling hand received them and popped them immediately into his mouth. They squirmed down his esophagus and a few minutes later the trembling episode had ceased.

"I'm going crazy." He whispered.

"No, you're not," she responded coldly. "That's a sorry excuse for keeping the room so dark and damp. I came to visit you and see how you receive me. God, I hate it when I'm right. It was all over your face—the chickenshit death wish to die." Spike hadn't heard her curse before. She had been sarcastic and cynical to him, always with a quick response, but now she was angry. She was shaken and startled, and she visibly hated him for it. She busied herself in the kitchen for a while, completely ignoring him, and he didn't want to break the silence. After a while, he couldn't help it anymore. It smelled good and he remembered one of those things that told him he was alive. Hunger.

"What are you making?" he asked.

"Bell peppers and beef," she answered after a quick grunt, but her tone had been light enough that he knew she had already forgiven him

"Real beef?" he said with a chuckle. She nodded and he laughed heartily.

Life loved to play ironic tricks on him.


	2. Two

Yoho:) Okay, so here's chapter 2. I know it's all a little confusing still and Faye hasn't come into play yet, but give it time. It'll start getting interesting pretty soon. Another thing, you may have noticed the narrative perspective is third person and that's pretty much how it's going to be. The whole fic will be focused on Spike mainly, and it's really hard for a girl to write about man and what they're feeling the whole time. So bare with me and if you have any suggestions, please tell me.

Disclaimer: Bebop's not mine, not the concept, or the characters, but the plot is mine. Yay. Okay, enough of my lame notes. :))

**Breaking Point**

---2---

"Joe? That's your new name?" Celia exclaimed attempting not to burst out laughing.

"Yeah." Spike answered nonchalantly.

"That gets a zero for creativity. So who are you trying to hide from exactly?" Her violet eyes narrowed on him as she handed him the plate with bell peppers and beef. Spike shrugged and took whiff of the food. He smiled contentedly. He grabbed his chopsticks and almost gorged down the plate. It tasted real good. Jet's cooking had never been—he stopped the thought—he was thinking of the past once again.

"This is so good," Spike commented with a frown.

"I noticed by the way you swallowed the plate whole." She chuckled and smacked the spoon on the counter. "You haven't answered me."

"Answered what?" He had already grown disinterested with her questions.

"Who are you running from?" She smirked. "Or should I ask what?"

"It's nothing." His quiet tone became somber.

"Fine. Have it your way. I have to go now. Keep taking your pills, I'll be around." With that she left him almost as disinterestedly as she had been curious just a moment before. Spike kept his routine going and maintained a low profile as well. He wasn't running from anything in particular. He just didn't feel the need to go back and make a big deal of him being alive. What was the point of dealing with that? He just wanted to live so he could die, whenever the hell fate decided it was okay.

What he refused to admit to himself was his cowardice. The reason he didn't notify Jet was because he wouldn't know what to say or do. He would sit there staring while Jet probably stared back, completely speechless, or shot him for doing that to him. Either way, the prospects weren't any good and he didn't want to have anything to do with the past anymore. If he wouldn't die, then the past would. There would be some comfort in at least that.

* * *

The alarm clock signaled the time, one in the morning, as he entered his apartment. It had been another night of late deliveries. His customers liked the darkness to cloak their dirty secrets. Everyone in this universe had a dirty secret, or two, or a hundred. He dealt with the people that had a hundred. Spike was never a good judge of character, and at this point in his life, he could care less. It brought food to the table and it kept him entertained. Okay, so delivering secret brown packages to sleazes didn't exactly peak on the interesting scale, but what else could he do?

He decided to train for a while. The apartment resembled any other metropolitan flat. No more than four walls, the bed directly in front of the kitchen, the only other door in the place was to the bathroom. It could have been worse. It could have been a curtain instead of a door. His bed faced the living room/dining room area and the kitchen. He had cleared the couch and small table and introduced a punching bag into this small area between the kitchen and the bed. It lacked luxury and size, but there was enough room for him to train. He began dancing around the punching bag, his feet gracefully sliding and his whole body loose and flowing. He attacked his opponent with fluidity and seriousness. He punched, kicked, slammed, and practiced dodging invisible adversaries. Why did he keep doing this? There was no one to fight. After Vicious, he didn't want to face another opponent in his life. Killing your own best friend can do that to you. Nevertheless, he kept doing this, because it was the only escape he had left.

"Why are you so angry?" The firm voice echoed around his apartment. He halted a kick in mid air and his already heavy breathing turned into rapid gasps. He breathed in and slowly turned around. She stood there with a gentle sadness reflected on her face. The same expression he remembered her by.

"This is beginning to creep me out," he muttered to himself and immediately headed to the kitchen to find the pills that Celia had given him. He stared at the small prescription bottle and scowled. "She said this would work."

"I don't mean to, I mean, I'm just wondering," Julia stammered nervously and a bit embarrassed as well. He shook his head.

"No, it's not your fault. I think. God, what is happening to me?"

"I'm worried about you. You can't keep doing this much longer." She stepped closer towards him. His breathed anxiously as she approached him and flinched, expecting her scent to hit him any time soon, but she came closer and he didn't smell anything. She touched his shoulder slightly. He held his breath and again, nothing. It was like an inanimate object touching him back. It felt cold and lifeless.

"Are you a ghost?" he asked frightened from her touch. She immediately removed her hand.

"I don't know," she answered frankly.

"Then why are you here?" He only felt sad now.

"Because I can feel your hurt. Don't you want to live?"

"How can you of all people ask me that?" He raised his voice, arms flailing in the air with exasperation. She shrunk back from him. Her eyes turned a blue hue. He had always loved how they did that. Depending on her mood, her eyes would shift colors. If she felt sad, stressed, or worried they would be a deep ocean blue. If she was focused and determined then they would turn emerald green to a verdant hue. "I'm sorry." He apologized for his outburst.

"No, I understand. You think you deserve to die." Her jaded eyes focused on him. Julia seemed aggravated. "You're selfish to think that. You would waste my death and his death, all the pain we went through. You think we got off easy?"

Her words didn't make sense in his mind. He tried processing what she told him, but it only caused a confused expression to crawl on his face.

"Why are you here?" He asked again.

"To show you something. To show you why you're alive." Julia approached the front door and opened it. "Let's go for a walk."

"This is crazy," he muttered. "Can anyone else see you?" He was simply baffled at the fact he was walking next to what could be an ethereal body of his dead girlfriend. _Just great, I'm losing it._ He pulled out a cigarette from his jacket pocket and smoked it anxiously. He thanked god for nicotine, it always managed to relax him. Julia laughed bringing her delicate hand to her mouth. He smiled at that. He had always loved her shy laughter and the way her lips curled to a smile. God, it felt just like a dream. He walked next to her just as he had in the past, when they laughed and watched the stars together those nights. Those wonderful nights they had escaped for a few moments from their complicated lives.

"Those were wonderful times." She smiled at him seemingly satisfied.

"You can read my thoughts?" he asked, not surprised.

"I guess." She stopped in mid step and glanced to her side. Spike followed Julia's glare hearing the voices across the street.

"What's such a beautiful doll doing here so late at night?" The large man asked leaning against the woman by the old strip club entrance. Spike cocked his head to the side trying to see the woman the large man was blocking. Her dark violet hair danced with the soft wind. Her emerald eyes revealed a hint of deviousness in them. Spike gasped and crept towards the shadows in the alley behind him still watching them.

"Oh, just looking for someone." The woman answered coyly. The large man leaned in closer attracted by her yellow outfit, or the lack thereof.

"Oh, it's that so?" His voice sounded full of desire and urgent to take her. "And who would that be?"

"A bounty." Her face suddenly dropped the seductive smile for a predatory smirk. She immediately cocked the gun at the side of his head before he could even flinch. She kneed him and he crouched grabbing his privates. She smacked him on the back of his head with her gun. His body dropped on the ground and a pair of fuzzy handcuffs rolled out of his pants. She scowled.

"Pervert," she muttered under her breath and shrugged using his own toy to restrain him. She put her gun away. A taxi came by and stopped right in front of them. She smirked. "Just in time." The man began groaning and she commanded for him to get in. He felt himself cuffed, and scoffed at her, but got in the car. The cab whizzed away.

"Well, she's certainly more effective." Spike mocked to himself. She wasn't around to hear his jokes anymore. "Is this why we took a walk?" He asked the figure that had been present the whole time.

"You misunderstand me," Julia said.

Memories of the Bebop rushed to his mind. He had been so caught up with Julia and his past, that the Bebop had barely crept into his mind and when it did he just pushed it away, choosing instead to torture himself with what he thought of as his failure to save Julia, to save his best friend, to prove to himself he was alive.

"But you are alive. A part of you died, that's true. You still won't let it go."

"What part is that?" He asked her still glaring at the now empty streets before him.

"The Spike that died that day is a different Spike."

"The one you loved?" He felt hurt by her words.

"No, the one whose life was empty."

"My life wasn't empty! I had you. I had…" His thoughts trailed off.

"There was never any _us_. Don't you see? You need more than love to live. You need to want to live in order to love."

"That was your mistake, not mine." He spat back.

"I know, but you're making it yours."

* * *

Last night had disturbed him. He had walked back to his apartment alone. Julia had just vanished into thin air again. As much as he wanted to admit to himself that none of it had occurred, he knew that it had. In the morning news they reported that a small time offender with a bounty on his head had been turned in. He had been worth only 10,000 woolongs, but a living is a living. Since then, he hadn't stopped thinking about his time in the Bebop. Was Jet working along with her? Had Ed and Ein returned? He could never give her that much credit for doing all that on her own, not without messing it up, but then again knowing his worth in money and how easy of a capture he had been, it wasn't implausible. However, it bothered him. He wanted to know how she had ended up here. He walked into Mireya's Delivery using the back door and found the old man, Griss, sitting there going through papers with boxes stacked around him.

"How did that last delivery go?" He had gray hairs outlined through his dark head.

"Just fine. Are there anymore until tonight?" Spike asked, it was only three in the afternoon, and most of his deliveries happened at night. The old man shook his head and suddenly looked up at him.

"That's right! My buddy called back. That woman, Faye Valentine, turns out she has an apartment here on Mars. Different alias though, Monique something, she matched her description perfectly. Anyway, here's the info." He handed Spike a piece of paper.

"I appreciate it."

"So what's with you, Joe? Tracking an old girlfriend? I thought you were the man with no past."

"Nah, it's nothing like that."

"Careful. He hears she may be a bounty hunter. Hmm, but you already knew that, didn't you? Well, just be back here at ten tonight. Don't get yourself in trouble."

"Never." Spike smirked. The man eyed him and then sank himself back into his paperwork.

Spike glanced at the large building standing in front of him. It was located on the East end of town, not exactly known for its luxury, but more for its crime rate. The edifice looked over a hundred years old, paint chipping, even with signs of corrosion, and it probably wasn't erected more than forty years ago. It made no sense why Faye would be staying a shabby place like that. Not that the woman had the reputation of being logical. He began walking with his hands in his pockets to the entrance of the building until he saw the familiar yellow outfit emerging from the front door. He quickly slipped to the side of the building and watched her as she crossed the street and continued walking.

_Why not follow her? It will probably pay off as good entertainment_, he thought to himself. Where Faye Valentine went, trouble always followed.

He tracked her carefully and the crowd on the streets made it easier for him to blend in without her noticing. Besides, she seemed lost in thought and unaware of her surroundings. She finally stopped in front a small building full of offices for small time lawyers, doctors, accountants, and whatever kind of business imaginable. She took the elevator and he waited until he saw the elevator stop. The light brightened at four and paused there, and that floor only had two offices. One was for a cosmetic surgeon and the other for private investigator. So unless Faye wanted to have a total makeover and with her ego it was pretty unlikely, she would probably be visiting Mr. Makoto Uchida, PI. He used the stairs to climb the four stories and found the door with the PI's name inscribed on it. What in the world could Faye want with a PI?

He grabbed the small sound chip he had "borrowed" from Griss' place. _No fun if I can't listen._ He pinned the small black chip under the doorknob and put on his headset. He went inside the cosmetic clinic across from the PI's office and sat down in their waiting area.

"I looked around some more of what remains of the Red Dragon members, but I'm telling you they scattered." He heard the man say. Spike's eyes widened.

"So no one matching his description?" Faye asked. Then a long pause. "Someone has to know something, a body can't just vanish!"

"That's why I called you. One of the members I tracked down said he heard he was dead, as to what they did to the body…" The man's voice trailed off.

"That's all you've got?" Faye sounded irritated and impatient.

"I'm afraid so. I mean, it's not everyday a syndicate just disbands you know."

"Has Jet called yet?" Her tone became softer, almost maternal.

"No, not yet."

"Don't tell him this. Tell him someone saw a man matching Spike's description around the northeast part of the city, but not much follow up after that. I don't know, something like that."

"This will cost you another five thousand," he told her firmly and then a pause followed by the sound of a drawer opening and then closing. "It's a pleasure doing business with you. I don't know why you keep wanting me to lie to him though."

"It gives him hope," she said so softly, it was almost inaudible. "That's why you're here. If he was alive or wanted to be found, Jet would have found him. He's just using you to keep on hoping." The door opened and then closed. Spike let his headset slide onto his neck. He stared blankly at nothing, not knowing how to process everything he had just heard.

"Sir, do you have an appointment?" A young woman waved a hand in front of him.

"No, I was just waiting for someone," he said monotonously and left, leaving the girl dumbfounded.

Spike removed the chip from the door and slowly went down the stairs. He stopped at the second floor and sat on a step. They had been looking for him all this time. They hadn't given up. He heard a few steps and then someone sat next to him. He glanced over at her. He had already felt her coming. He grabbed Julia's hand and she let him simply looking back at him with same intensity that he stared at her. He felt the cold emptiness in his hand, like holding the air.

"I can't feel you," he whispered.

"They're not like you. They won't give up on you."

"Yeah, they're stubborn like that."

"Especially her."


	3. Three

Hey guys, another chapter in! I got this one in so fast, because your reviews encouraged me so much. I'm so happy to have gotten reviews this being my first fic on here. I'm going to try to be real good about updating at least once a week. About Julia, I haven't really specified her purpose. I'm kind of leaving it up for interpretation so far.

To my reviewers: thanks so much for the suggestions. As for Celia, she was kind of a last minute happening, and I can see where she's lacking a bit. I'm so glad you guys like Julia being in the story and don't worry, I will keep to this story and I'm actually going to have some serious dvd watching this weekend because I feel I need to get in touch with the bebop characters yet again :)

Disclaimer: this is the last one. You know I certainly do not own these wonderful characters, or anything cowboy bebop. :( Oh well, on with the story.

**Breaking Point**

---3---

Spike couldn't lie to himself. He had never heard that tone of voice from Faye. She had sounded so sad and sympathetic. It had been already a few hours since she had taken off with the Red Tail. He assumed she was probably going back to the Bebop, so he decided to venture inside her apartment. He jimmied her lock and slipped inside observing everything carefully. The flat resembled his except it had probably few square feet less than his place. She only had a bed and an armoire in the room and nothing in the kitchen. Her bed sheets were crumpled and he only found a few pieces of clothing hung in the closet. It made her seem so pathetic and it made him feel the same way.

"Faye-faye, what kind of living is this?" he asked the empty room. An object on the floor between the nightstand and the bed caught his attention. A small pill bottle lay there tilted on its side. He picked it up and read the label. The name on it read Perry Waas, _take one to two pills at night for sleeping_. He placed the bottle back in its discarded position. It was half-empty.

He moved towards the only window of the room. It didn't have a particularly nice view since it faced the wall of the building next to it. He looked out her window and observed that you could see the corner window of the sixth floor from the hotel across the street. He smiled to himself and left her apartment. A few moments later, he had checked into the Royale Hotel, corner room 618.

He sprawled himself over the large suite bed. He hadn't lain in covers this soft in so long. He glanced around the room flinching at the dinning room, couch, and kitchen it had, along with some fruit and bottled water on his night table. Spike had not expected the room to be an executive suite. What kind of hotels on the East end had executive suites anyway? He grumbled at his own boredom. If it weren't for the fact that his life lacked any kind of entertainment, he would not be stuck with a huge bill for this place.

_I really am going insane. This is almost like stalking._ He shrugged it off, if she wasn't so hard to follow around, he wouldn't have to go through all these measures. Though he did not want to admit it, by following Faye, Spike simply tried to grab on to whatever he could of the past and though he would bury it as deep as he could in his mind, his past was all he had left.

He waited around for hours until around one in the morning the lights in Faye's apartment came on. He kept his room dark and watched at an angle from his room window. The view from his window allowed him to see most of her apartment. He could see the bed, part of the armoire, the front door, and bit of the kitchen. He put on his headset recalling the chip he had placed under her night table. Her shoulders were slouched and her face expressed mere exhaustion. She dropped her keys and communicator on the bed and sat down at the end of the mattress. He heard her sigh exasperatedly. She let body fall on the bed, her head barely missing the communicator.

"This fucking sucks, Faye," she spoke softly, staring blankly at the ceiling. The ring of the communicator echoed in Spike's ears. Her sprawled arm reached for it and then clicked the incoming button.

"Hey Faye, I was thinking." Jet's voice emerged.

"What now? We just got done with the bounty and I'm exhausted. Stupid wank got away," she muttered bitterly.

"Not that. I was thinking that you should just stay in the Bebop from now on. I mean, it makes no sense to just keep looking." Faye sat up immediately.

"What do you mean? Just give up on it?" she asked with resignation.

"We waited for months and then looked for him thinking he may still be alive. Well, if he is then he can come back on his own. We shouldn't waste more of our time on him."

"I know about the PI Jet." There was a long pause.

"I think we should call it quits. There's this bounty in Ganymede." Jet paused.

"Okay, just give me two days," she whispered and hung up. Faye stood up and left Spike's view for a while. He heard some shuffling and then running water and figured she must have been in the bathroom. Faye opened the small drawer of her night table and Spike flinched. _What if she suspects something? _She closed it back up forcefully and reached down between the bed and the night table. She had been searching for her sleeping pills. Spike sighed with relief. His drama almost ended before the scheduled time. He could hear small sounds of some kind and he tried adjusting the volume on his headset. The sobs became apparent to him. Faye Valentine was crying. She walked over to the armoire and began throwing everything out on the ground. She went over to her bed and threw her keys against the wall. She cried harder and picked up a small box lying on the ground. She pulled out a smoke and lit it. She breathed in the cancerous fumes and then puffed the air back out. The cigarette trembled in her hands, her whole body was shaking and her sobs transformed into cries. She crouched by the end of the bed holding her knees to her chest and resting her head on them. Spike took off his headset and threw it on the ground. He couldn't listen or watch any longer.

"You're not the only one who hurts." Her voice pierced through the darkness. "The mind of a man can quake when he sees unexpected weaknesses within him."

"Don't do this right now," Spike whispered bitterly lighting one of his cigarettes. The ethereal figure sat on the bed.

"Your past is not all you have left." She insisted.

"What is it that you want from me?" His tone was barely audible.

"To use your eye that looks into the past to look into the present instead. We couldn't be free because of that. We were always looking to the past for answers."

"What do you want me to say? That I see her like that and I think to myself, I want to know more about this woman. This woman who cries in the night and hides her pain so she won't hurt others. This woman who can be petty and bitchy just to hide her fears. A woman that isn't you." he paused. His voice had remained calm, but bitter. "Women, children and critters are trouble you know."

"You're a good man, Spike. No matter what you tell yourself. You're a good man." With those words, she vanished once again. He simply puffed out another cloud of smoke as the lights of Faye's room turned off.

Spike stared mindlessly at the morning rays peering through his window. He picked up his last cigarette and lit it. The cigarette box now lay on the ground empty, but might as well blame his compulsive need of nicotine on insomnia. He had another episode of his violent tremors that had lasted most of the night and the pills only met him halfway by stopping his body from vibrating unceasingly, but not the manic rush of thoughts that stampeded through his brain. The nicotine eased his mind from going into overload.

"I can't keep on like this. I'm not disgruntled enough to be a chain smoker," Spike muttered to himself and got up. He sighed with a comical frustrated expression on his face. He walked over to the window and saw Faye placing whatever belongings she had scattered all over the apartment into a black duffel bag. She grabbed the bottle of pills and threw them in the trashcan by the armoire. "I guess she's tired of depending on those things."

She walked towards the window and looked towards the sky. Faye Valentine seemed lost and alone. He knew what that felt like. He felt it right now. He recalled that day before he left. Her tears streamed hopelessly down her porcelain face. She had pleaded for him not to go. She remembered and had a past now, but it didn't matter. She had learned what he couldn't. Now that it was all in the past, that he had proved that he was alive, he still couldn't. Anger seeped into him, anger at himself.

She left the duffel bag on the bed and exited the apartment. He picked up his headset and put on his jacket. He went down the stairs and decided to follow Faye again around town. She couldn't go too far. After all, she had asked Jet for two days, who knows for what? Perhaps that gave her enough time to leave her apartment, perhaps she needed to let go. The same part of him that urged him to follow her also didn't want her to give up. Did he want to be found? No, not particularly. He wanted someone to keep on hoping for him, because he couldn't do it anymore.

She went inside a bar and he squirmed. It was barely nine in the morning and she was already fetching a drink. His stomach growled which persuaded him to try out the diner across the street from the bar. He ordered Belgium pancakes and a ham steak. The food didn't taste half bad, but his breakfast took a sour turn immediately as he watched a man holding a medium sized stick approaching Faye as she exited the bar. She waved him off, but he followed her. Spike quickly left the diner and ran across the street into an alley near them. He peered through the corner of the building and saw Faye finally turned around to face the man.

"I thought that if I ignored you for a while, you would go away. My mistake for thinking you were a dog."

"I like them feisty," the man stated gripping his stick with both hands.

"You really mean to pick a random fight with me?" She cocked a smile.

"No, I have a message for you, Faye Valentine." Faye tilted her head with a slight pang of annoyance and dread washing over her face.

"Yeah, and who would you be? A collector?" She licked her lips. He kept smacking the black stick against one hand.

"No, I've come bearing a message from an old friend. Spike Spiegel." He stated and lunged at her. Her eyes widened and she barely snapped out of the shock to dodge his attack. She pulled out her gun to shoot at him, but he quickly ran into the alley. She put away her gun and ran after him. A few moments passed and she came back out with a combination of a lost, confused, and angry look on her face. She marched off kicking a can lying on the floor and muttering curses under her breath.

Spike's attention deviated from Faye as he heard a few creaks coming from above him. He glanced up seeing the man in the roof. He climbed down the fire exit on the side of the building and Spike pulled out a cigarette and patiently waited for him below.

"You know, you shouldn't slander, it's not nice, especially using someone else's name for your dirty games." Spike told the man as he watched him jump down to the ground. He puffed out a cloud of smoke and let his cigarette fall on the ground before putting it out with the ball of his foot.

"Who the hell are you?" The man asked him gripping his stick with both hands and teeth clenched ready to fight him.

"You have got to be kidding," Spike said shocked that the man who had just used his name didn't even know who he was. The man ripped his stick in two revealing two sharp blades at each end. Spike smirked as the man lunged at him with the blades and Spike simply danced around his attacks. Spike finally landed his right fist on the man's face and kicked both blades out of his hands. He then kicked him in the stomach. He gripped the man by the hair and bent down to face him. "Who sent you?" Spike demanded.

"No one," the man gasped out.

"Wrong answer." Spike jammed the side of his face against the wall. The man spit out blood. "Who sent you?"

"I got an envelope with 100,000 woolongs, her picture, and note saying to relay that message to her in an impolite way. It said if I did it I would find one hundred more in my mailbox."

"Of course." Spike muttered and let go of the man. Someone knew he was alive and well. This changed his perspective on everything. He left the man bleeding there and headed towards his apartment. He didn't know who would go after him like this, but he needed to think of a plan. He recalled Faye's crying the night before. He sighed to himself. _Great, even dead I get women troubles._

What would he do now?

He finally made it back to his apartment where the emptiness awaited him. He remembered Faye's emerald orbs welled up with tears. He remembered Julia's worn, but relieved expression as she died. He remembered Jet cooking bell peppers with beef without the beef and sitting alone with his partner eating the eggs leaving two portions for Ed and Faye.

"I have to go back," he told her as her presence became predominant again. He turned around and faced her. She nodded at him. "Besides, they seem hopeless without me." He smirked.

He heard several knocks on his door. A few hours had passed and he already had most of his stuff packed, not that he had a lot. He went to open the door and found Celia trying to catch her breath. He invited her in and poured her a glass of water. She sat down on the stool by the kitchen counter.

"I heard from Griss that you're going now." Celia said after taking a gulp of water.

"Yeah, it turns out I have unfinished business after all."

"Hmm, the woman?"

"That man keeps nothing secret, does he?" His eye was twitching.

"Not from me, he doesn't." She winked and drank another sip of water. "I, for one, am glad. The name Joe didn't suit you. This lifestyle didn't suit you. You're not one to hide and scurry away into the shadows, are you Spike?" Her violet orbs focused on him and he felt himself a bit tense as if she were trying to dig deep to find answers he, himself, did not know. "You leaving today?" He nodded and she smiled, her violet eyes had suddenly brightened up with curiosity. "All right, if you need me you know where to find me." She sipped the last bit of water and headed for the door. Before she closed it behind her, she glanced at him one more time. "By the way, Griss asks that you return what you borrowed." She grinned and left.

Spike grabbed his small sack and placed it on his shoulders. He glanced back at the cold flat before leaving and after a pause, he closed the door behind him. Gathering all of his courage and conviction, he headed towards the pier where he knew Jet would be waiting for Faye. His instincts had been right. The old fishing ship floated in the water, parked on the pier. He jumped from the dock near the Bebop onto the hangar. He took in a deep breath and entered the ship.

Welcome back, cowboy.


	4. Four

Hey guys, yeah I know I got this chapter out a little too fast. I can't help it, it's all just flooding out and I'm scared I'll get too busy and won't be able to update. Anyhow, after this chapter introductions are over and things start seriously picking up. I was having flow issues with this chapter at the beginning, but I hope it's okay now.

Standard disclaimer applies.

**Breaking Point**

---4---

Spike roamed into the Bebop and the first object his eyes fell upon was the Swordfish II parked and restored. He smirked knowing that Jet had probably found it and fixed it up for him hoping he would return for his ship. Jet knew him all too well. He patted the side of his old red companion and wandered deeper into the Bebop listening to sizzling and spoons clattering against a pan in the galley, if you could really call that tiny room to be anything like a kitchen. Jet was probably cooking his dreadful meals as always. He whizzed by the galley and sat on the old yellow couch. The appearance of the ship had remained the same and the familiarity felt more comforting than the perturbing effect he thought it would have on him.

After a few minutes of reminiscing, he stood up and walked by the shower room hearing the sounds of water drizzling. He figured Faye was probably in there refreshing the anger off herself. He smirked and wandered into his empty room. It was as messy as he had left it. Those two sentimental comrades of his hadn't touched a thing. With a rueful smile, he set down his sack. It was the first time in his life that he had time to pack and think of what he would do. _Well, there's a first time for everything._

He brought out a pack of smokes and placed a cigarette in his mouth. He lit it heading back towards the lounge area. He was about to plop down on the couch when Jet peered his head out of the kitchen.

"Faye, dinner's almost ready!" he shouted and popped back in for a few seconds.

_3…2…1._

"Spike!" Jet shouted instinctively rushing out of the kitchen. Faye had just opened the bathroom door as soon as she had heard Jet call her.

"Yo," Spike answered nonchalantly and then turned his mismatched dark eyes towards Faye. She stood paralyzed in front of the bathroom door, still a little wet, with a towel wrapped around her svelte figure. Her eyes revealed nothing but a blank expression. Her rosy lips slightly opened about to say something, but no words flowed out of her mouth. With a quick shrug and a dismissal gesture of her hand, she left for her room not glancing back at him. His brow furrowed with reproach.

"What's her deal?" Spike asked plopping on the couch. Jet had already sat down trying to catch his heart and regain his color.

"What do you expect Spike? Dead people don't just wander in like that." Jet sighed. "Besides, your little messenger pissed her off to hell. What kind of sick joke is that?"

"That wasn't me. I don't know the man and I don't know who sent him."

"And that's why you're back?" Jet said raising an eyebrow, but his question sounded more like a statement.

"I needed time," Spike replied discarding his used cigarette.

"You could have at least let us known that you were alive." Jet sat down, pressing his palm against his chest, as if he had nearly had a heart attack.

"I wasn't too clear on that myself for a while." Jet brushed his hand on his bald head. He muttered a "damnit" and got up. Spike only stared at him in confusion.

"Well, dinner's almost done. Yakisoba noodles today." Jet informed him with an inviting expression on his face. He walked off to the kitchen, but glanced back at him briefly before entering. "Hey Spike, glad to have you back." Spike smiled and nodded.

He rummaged his sack throwing clothes, two guns, a pack of cigarettes and some more clothes on his bed. His whole body had been overcome with tremors and he could barely concentrate long enough to search through his belongings. The pill bottle finally turned up. He gripped it and popped the lid open. He swallowed two of his pills. Grabbing his lighter and a cigarette, he headed for the lounge area to smoke. He sat in the darkness with his cigarette trembling within his lips. He heard another door open and saw Faye's small figure rushing into the bathroom. He went to stand by the bathroom door and had the pleasure of hearing her gagging and then flushing the toilet.

"Feeling under the weather?" He asked as she exited the bathroom. She jumped back startled a bit. His eyes had already adapted well enough to the darkness that he could see her face quickly turning into a stoic expression.

"What do you want?" she said monotonously.

"You haven't said a word to me since I got here." That bothered him more than he would admit to himself.

"I thought dead people didn't talk, not that you were much of a conversationalist when you were alive." Her tone hadn't wavered.

"That's all?" he asked annoyed by her indifferent demeanor.

"I don't have anything to say."

"Faye big-mouth Valentine not have something to say?" He snickered and saw her eyebrow twitch.

"I'm tired. I'm going to bed." She began walking away, but he grabbed her by the arm. Her body whipped back to face him. His cheek felt hot and sore from the impact of her hand against it.

"What the fuck did you do that for?" He held his cheek defensively. She had really lost her nerve.

"I thought the dead didn't feel either," Sshe whispered and left for her room. Spike stood staring at the empty darkness before him dumbfounded.

"She must be real angry that you left her." Julia whispered. Spike sighed at Julia's impeccable timing. This would soon drive him nuts, that is, if hadn't lost it already.

"Yeah. I guess so," he replied coldly. "Why did she cry then?" His mind spoke for him.

"I don't know." Julia's soft voice never ceased to comfort him.

"Did she really miss me?" His mind would not be dissuaded from the matter at hand.

"Do you miss her?"

"Why do you do that? Tell me some cryptic crap, does that come along with your supposed purpose?" He was angry.

"You misunderstand me again. I've no purpose here. I've no commitment to you. I don't know why I'm here. I just know that I am and that I feel what you feel like I'm a part of you."

"What kind of answer is that?"

"Spike?" The lights suddenly came and Jet wandered into the lounge area. Spike glanced around the entire place, but Julia was gone. "Who in the world were you talking to?"

"Myself." Spike smirked nervously.

"That's never a good sign you know."

The next morning rolled along and to say the least Spike hadn't slept a single minute. Not that sleep was exactly the most productive of activities, nevertheless, Spike still treasured whatever simple pleasures he had left in his life. Apparently, sleep had ceased to be one of them. He decided to take an early shower knowing he would enjoy the warm water and leave Faye with none. He smirked, because what could he do? She had brought this on herself after all. As he exited his room, he spotted Faye attempting to reach the shower before him. _That sneaky little wench. _He glared at her with anger. That tomboy was really starting to fuse a nerve. He ran to the door like an eager little boy trying to make it to the hide and seek save spot in time.

"I don't think so." He smiled placing his hand on the latch of the door. She glared at him, her left eyebrow twitching and teeth clenching. She breathed in and simply shrugged. This was really starting to irritate him. Her controlled moods and reactions, even if he could read through them, still bothered him. Especially how she would try and hide everything. She had changed altogether from a total unpleasant, crazy, and furiously loud tomboy to a control freak. None of those qualities were the least bit attractive to him and yet, that's how most of the day carried on. Faye would leave for a while and then come back to eat at the Bebop with no objection from Jet and no acknowledgement of Spike's existence. Spike Spiegel did not like being ignored, especially by a self-righteous, pompous chick. He was flustered with anger and even more irritated at the fact that even if he told her off, she would pull that prideful _I'm in control_ act. He spent a few hours in the engine room practicing his martial arts techniques and venting off the steam that shivered in his skin. His mind relented itself to the calm and complex world of his fighting. Spike had submerged himself in the deepest of oceans as he fought the only one he could blame for all that he felt, all his spite, all his troubles, and his troubled life. He blamed it all on himself.

He practiced a few hours past sunset, took a shower and then thought it best to treat himself to a drink or two. All he needed to reach his ultimate Zen was some gin. He chuckled inwardly at that. As he exited his room and headed towards the lounge, he saw Faye's small figure plopped on the yellow couch watching some news. He scoffed silently. She was purposefully trying to aggravate him. Laying around in her little t-shirt and shorts ignoring the fact he was alive. _What did you expect Spike? A warm welcome?_ He sighed. He definitely needed that drink.

"Oi Spike." Jet called to him as he headed towards the hangar. "We're leaving tomorrow for Ganymede. You coming along?" Spike shrugged and boarded the Swordfish II. He had heard Jet mutter some exasperated expression under his breath, but then again that was Jet. Though, he had never asked if he wanted to come along before. A year seemed to cause a lot of changes in people's character. People he thought he knew too well. Perhaps Spike's mind had been in a troubled state too long to notice that his once _good eyes_ for this sort of thing were going blind.

He headed into town and decided to try out a new place. He spotted a little French Jazz bar on east end called "La Tour Eiffel." Obviously a pun from the past he didn't quite catch. He sat in a corner, drank his gin and smoked uninterrupted for a while. Spike had welcomed the sleazy peace and space that bar provided him. That is until he saw the young blonde bartender and one of her friends giggling while shuffling glances towards him. He could hear their words clearly, but he had never been well versed in French. It annoyed him sometimes when women did this, especially on nights like this. He just didn't feel up to playing games with anyone.

"Qu'estce qu'il boit?" The woman asked the bartender. Her eyes and hair were as black as the night and her olive complexion glowed in the dull lights of the room.

"Du gin." The blonde responded. Natalie had been her name as he recalled.

"Ah bon." The woman signaled a one with her finger. _Just great._ She was asking for gin and he knew exactly what that meant. Her dark eyes glanced over to him and he smiled, not that he was welcoming her, but his bad habits of being a charmer didn't exactly fade that easy.

"Natalie, une chanson s'il vous plait." Her voice sounded deviously low.

"La meme?" Natalie asked and her friend nodded. The woman slid off her stool and in her radiant sleek black dress she headed towards Spike. He grumbled under his breath and then outwardly masked his frustration with a smirk. She sat at his table and slid the gin towards him. He caught it and nodded a thank you. Natalie's voice emerged from the small stage on the corner. She sang with a gentle low voice "La Vie en Rose."

"You looking for a good time cowboy?" Her radiant dark eyes traced his features playfully. She bent slightly on the table revealing a hint of cleavage as her black curls cascaded past each shoulder.

"I'm not a cowboy and no thanks." He replied nonchalantly. She had surprised him really. From a distance, she hadn't seemed like the type of woman who would offer herself like that. Then again, his judgment of woman had been kind of bruised for a while.

Her red lips rounded up in a pout and she cocked her head. Her features took an immediate prideful classy stance. He was suddenly faced with a very different woman.

"Oh, but I think you are a cowboy." Her tone differed completely from before. She sounded cynical.

"Listen lady, I just came for a drink, and nothing else." Two men in suits standing at the two corners near the door eyed them fiercely.

_…Quand il me prend dans ce bras_

_Il me parle tous bas_

_Je vois la vie en rose_

"This was my father's favorite song."

"How touching," Spike said with a scowl.

"I remember you, Spike Spiegel." She eyed him sharply. His expression remained stoic shielding the shock within him.

_Il me dit des mots d'amour_

_Des mots de tous les jours_

_Et ca me fait quelque chose…_

"Who are you?" His mismatched brown eyes focused on her.

"I remember how ten years ago you killed my father. He was all I had. I was eleven years old. He hadn't done anything to anyone, but you killed him." She spat spitefully and then quickly composed herself. Spike's breathing had rapidly increased and his mind searched frantically through his memories for any trace of the girl, now a woman, sitting in front of him. His face remained stoic.

"I don't like to hang onto the past," he simply stated. She smiled charmingly, almost as if he were her suitor.

"Do you sleep well at night?" She inquired still grinning.

"Not particularly." His mind had resigned already to not recalling who this person could be. The past is the past, and one cannot change it. What else did she want from him?

"Good." She added and stood up. The two tall guys in dark suits followed her as she walked out of the bar.

_I give up trying to understand women. _

* * *

I know, I know. Where's all the Faye/Spike action? Trust me. It'll be here. This was a character development chapter, sorry about that, but chapter 5 and 6 is all Faye/Spike. I promise.

Oh about the French, if you really didn't get the hints of what they were saying, basically, it was the woman asking Natalie what he was drinking and then requesting her to sing a song which was Edith Piaf's "La Vie en Rose."


	5. Five

Hey guys, this one took a while to be edited. I just couldn't get it quite right, but I hope you guys like it. It's kind of a short chapter, but chapter 6 is longer and already edited, so I'm going to wait a bit see if there's anything I can improve from your comments and then post it on the weekend.

Okay, that review by tiger made me laugh so hard. I have put a lot of double innuendos (not just sexual by the way) here and there. That one was actually unintentional, but let me just say: Ah, the dirty minded .

Standard disclaimer applies.

**Breaking Point**

---5---

Spike entered the Bebop lounge area and plopped on the couch. He was shaking again and could barely control himself enough to not run into anything. He decided that nicotine would have to do until he could manage to stumble to his room. He smoked one cigarette and the tremors only seemed to intensify. _Well, maybe that wasn't such a hot idea._ With jerky movements and a labored breath, he made his way to his room with a few wobbly steps that almost cost him a one way trip to the ground.

"What are you doing?" Faye muttered in the darkness as he stumbled past her room.

"You up waiting for me?" Spike joked, his lips trembling.

"No jerk. I was headed to take a piss, not that…" She halted in mid-sentence, which told Spike that she had realized something was wrong. "Hey Spike," She called softly and touched him on the shoulder. He wanted to command his body to stop it at that instant. "Are you okay? You're shaking." Her voice sounded half-curious and half-frightened.

"You noticed, huh?" Spike chuckled and Faye scoffed at him pulling her hand away.

"I'm just trying to be civil, you know."

"Your politeness isn't going to help me." He started shaking even more. _Great way to kill any ego I had left._ He slid along the wall until he landed sitting on the floor.

"What will?" She almost sounded concerned.

"Bottle under my bed." Faye immediately went into his room and a few moments later she came out and handed him the small bottle. He took out two pills and popped them into his mouth.

"We're way into the twenty-first century and still using pills, doesn't that seem stupid? I mean sure, they're tasteless and disintegrate without having to drink water and all but still."

"What the hell are you talking about?" He asked after swallowing his two pills. She chuckled nervously and slid down next to him. Still quaking, he glanced over his shoulder. She placed a small lock of her violet hair behind her ears. He could see her, smell her, and feel the warmth that radiated from her body and that comforted him too much to his surprise. In a jerky impulse, his hand reached for hers. He grabbed it and held it there as he trembled. At first, she almost jerked away, but instead she held his hand back without any objection.

"I wonder why they happen. I've never seen you like this," she said in a low tone

"They started about three months ago a few weeks after I woke up."

"You were unconscious all that time." The shock echoed in her voice.

"Yeah." Spike chuckled, but it sounded more like labored breathing.

"Head trauma?" She turned to him.

"More like all kinds of trauma." An awkward yet soothing silence surrounded them for a long while. His quaking body slowly became composed once again.

"Well, that was a quite a bonding experience. I'm going to bed." She pried her hand away from his as the sarcasm washed over his body. He smiled to himself in spite of everything. She had forgotten to take a piss after all.

"Yeah, sleep tight." He added, but he couldn't help being annoyed at her. She was confusing as hell. _What is wrong with me anyway?_ His ego scorned him for sinking that low. Letting Faye see him in a weakened, even pathetic state, had been one thing, but holding her hand? He had definitely pushed it too far. _Apparently, dying a couple of times can make a man kind of wimpy._ Irony and sarcasm had reached new levels that day. He headed to his room with the bitter after taste of alcohol still lingering on his tongue. All he wanted to do was attempt to sleep. For a moment, he wished he had borrowed a couple of Faye's sleeping aids. After hours of trying, he managed to fall asleep, his tired state of mind hitting REM immediately.

* * *

"I don't like it. He's still too young." Mao Yenrai spoke firmly.

"He'll do fine. This isn't his first job. He wouldn't be alive if he hadn't killed before." The man sitting across him smiled coldly.

"It is the first of this kind." Yenrai insisted.

"It's an easy one. A good starter to show his potential. Vicious has done just fine, he'll be with him. You worry too much Yenrai."

Spike smirked and nodded at the cold man and at Yenrai. The doors flew open as Spike emerged outside the syndicate building, a semi-automatic along with two handguns hidden inside his overcoat. A soft hum filled the air. The familiar melody rang in his ears as he hopped into the black car.

* * *

Spike awoke abruptly. Every vein in his head pounded fiercely. His hands rubbed his eyes, still feeling trapped within the dream, still hearing that melody in his head. That song last night had crawled into his dreams and bounced around in his mind. And to his unpleasant surprise, he found Julia sitting at the side of his bed glaring at him curiously while humming "La Vie en Rose."

"God, not even in my sleep," he uttered rubbing his temples and reaching for the cigarette pack he left by his pillow. Julia shrugged at him and continued humming the song. Usually, Spike marveled at the sound of her voice, but the song reminded him of the tasteless gin and that crazy French woman.

"It reminds me of something, that song. But it hurts to think about it." She sighed and silence now governed the room much to Spike's gratitude.

"I don't suppose you want some coffee." He placed a cigarette in his mouth and stood up. He ruffled his dark hair a bit and swung his head from side to side trying to get his neck to crack or at least unwind.

He tried the coffee at the galley, but it had already gone cold. His face grimaced as he tasted it and at the fact that he had slept for only an hour last night. _It's better than nothing. _Jet entered the small cooking area eyeing Spike's unpleasant morning appearance.

"Hey Jet, did you make this coffee?" Spike asked slapping the cup back down.

"No, Faye probably did." Jet rubbed the sides of his head. He didn't sleep well either.

"Figures, it's terrible," Spike said with a g4rimace.

"Jet." Faye peered into the kitchen. "I think we're going to have to postpone our trip." She strolled in not even glancing once at Spike.

"To Ganymede?"

"Faye, you make the worst coffe,." Spike added glancing at the brown goop in his cup.

"Yeah, turns out someone caught our fish." She didn't flinch at his comment.

"Damn, well we better find some business soon."

Spike smirked and took out his pay card. He handed it to Jet who just stared at him in disbelief. "It should do for now."

"Since when do you share money like this?" Jet raised an eyebrow at him.

"What are old comrades for?" He glanced over at Faye who still refused to look at him. She shrugged at Jet and then left saying something about a shower. He massaged his temples as his mind ached with aggravation. He couldn't bear her ignoring him any longer. It would drive him insane at this rate and he didn't even really know why. He figured it was just for old time's sake, as a security blanket. He wanted some kind of constant from his past, even if it meant arguing with Faye. He didn't care at this point.

"I see she's still hell-bent on ignoring me."

"She doesn't like you much."

"Yeah, well, I'm not asking her to." Spike smirked. He glanced at the bathroom door and focused on it as his lips curled to a devious smile.

"Wait Spike, what are you thinking?" Jet was already shaking his head at him.

"Just an innocent prank." The devious smile turned into a full out plan in his mind and right then was the perfect time to execute it.

"I don't want to hear your whining when she beats you to the ground." Amusement rang in the 38-year-old's voice—amusement and relief.

Perhaps Spike dwelled too much on the Faye situation, but she sparked something in him that he couldn't explain. It all went back to that day when he saw her crying in her room—no—even further back to that fateful day when he faced Vicious. No one had ever cried for him that way. No one had ever pleaded for him to stay or even desired for him to live that badly. Julia had been so different. He recalled the comforting and cold calmness that engulfed them when they were together. They shared similar pains, similar struggles, and their love rose from the bittersweet lives they led. It had been so wonderful and so different from this.

He didn't want to think about his actions concerning anything, least of all Faye. Life had granted him another chance and he figured that he was running on overtime by now. Why should it bother him? His dead girlfriend appeared here and there. He had incontrollable seizures. He had come back to the Bebop on a whim. At this point, he saw it futile to even attempt to make sense of anything. He allowed his impulses to control him, because it all turned out simpler that way. After all, Spike had never been one to overanalyze, so most of his actions, which reflected his feelings would sneak by him and he wouldn't notice until it was too late.

He stealthily entered the bathroom. The warm steam enraptured him and he could hear a few quiet murmurs coming from Faye. The loud roaring sound of the water allowed him to carefully reach for her clothes, towel, and her gun. He threw the towel around his neck and then hung the gun in his pants. He held her clothes in one hand patiently waiting for her to finish her sanitary ritual. A sudden moment of realization struck him as he heard the water drizzle against her body. The dark silhouette reflected playfully on the opaque curtain. He could readily trace every curve and line of her profile. She always wore clothes that revealed more than they covered, but never had it occurred to him before just how beautiful she was. Seeing her soft figure reflected, leaving mostly all to his imagination, made her seem so fragile and delicate.

_Whoa there, pent up frustration, she's just a tomboy. Snap out of it._

The squeaky sound of the knob and the fading of the water indicated him that it was almost show time. He smirked as soon as he spotted her pale hand creeping out trying to find her clothes.

"Where the hell?" She quickly opened the curtains much to her dismay.

"Hello Faye." Spike greeted her dangling her clothes from his hand. It took less than a second for Faye to explode.

"You fucking pervert!" She screamed quickly pulling the curtain around her small frame. "Give them back!"

"Now that's the Faye I know." He remarked. She quieted for a moment as a red flush crept on her cheeks. Satisfaction filled his prideful ego almost instantly.

"When I get out of here, I'm going to kill you." She stated firmly.

"You forget, I'm already dead."

"Prick." She pouted angrily. This only fed his face a victoriously childish grin.

"Besides, you deserve this. You can't plan to ignore me forever."

"I can sure as hell try."

There it was. That was all she needed to do to cause the spark of irritation to be ignited within him. He came back for her. He felt a little concerned and like a good comrade he had come back. _Damn women._

"Why are you so mad at me?" He narrowed his soft russet eyes on her.

"Must we really talk about this, right now?" He nodded at her. Her emerald eyes stared grievously at him. The urge to shrink back suddenly overcame him, but he stopped it in time to salvage his ego. Instead, he painted his familiar stoic expression across his face. He sighed about ready to hand her back the towel and the clothes, but then she spoke up. "You didn't say anything. You just left and then didn't say anything. It's been a damn year and you stroll in like nothing happened. I can't do that, Spike. I'm not a spineless dead carcass walking around."

"You have no idea what I went through." His face, heart, and body had grown rigid.

"Yeah, I heard. You were sleeping." She paused. "You have no idea what _I_ went through."

"You told me. You're a woman with a past now."

"No, I'm not. Everyone I loved is dead. I have nothing. I got my memories back, but my past is what I've lived in the past four years. It's the only thing that's shaped who I am."

He dropped her clothes and towel on the area by the shower. He walked out of the bathroom without saying word. He certainly hadn't come back to deal with this.

"Damn, I can't believe you're still looking for women troubles." Jet commented while typing and glaring intently at his computer screen.

"It's north and I'm south." Spike muttered jumping onto the yellow couch. Jet tore his eyes away from the screen and cocked an eyebrow at Spike. Spike placed his hands behind his head and slumped back on the hard furniture. "Like a magnet," He finally added. "I attract women troubles."

Jet chuckled seeing Faye stomping down the stairs. "That you do."

"Hey you." She called to him, her arms crossed under her breasts. She wore her usual yellow outfit and her long pink stockings. Spike lethargically let his head fall to the side facing Faye.

"Yes?" He yawned. She only glared harder at him.

"You forgot to give me back my gun." He smirked and pulled himself up with little effort. He walked over to the circular hall behind the lounge.

"Hey! I want it back!" She stomped towards him. He barely turned around, his double breasted jacket undone. His hand slid the jacket to the side revealing the gun dug in his pants, the black handle protruding. Jet sighed and shook his head.

"Come and get it." He turned back around and smirked. _I really have lost all control over myself._


	6. Six

Hey guys this chapter is already in. I don't know whether I should update as often or not. I might start slowing down because once chapter 7 starts, it gets into the actual plot (Yes there is a plot. I'm not building you up for nothing).

I know that most writers take a while before updating and I don't know if that affects the quality of my writing, but I feel like I've edited (as well as my beta reader) this chapter to death and if I don't post it I won't move on. By the way, I'm usually two chapters ahead, so it's not like I'm just coughing this up. Tell me what you think please!

Standard disclaimer applies.

**Breaking Point**

---6---

"What did you say?" He heard her voice echo from behind him.

"Come and get it." He repeated still walking away from her.

"That's it!" His body stopped, hearing her steps accelerating in his direction. The sounds of her hands jutting towards his neck alerted him and he swung his upper body off to the side watching Faye slightly slide forward and then quickly whipping back around to face him. The look on her face had transformed into that of a furiously alert predator. She truly wanted to kill him and he couldn't help but smile at that. She charged for him and aimed a punch for his face. He gracefully dodged it and it only seemed to fuel her attacks. She followed with several high kicks, kneeing, elbowing, and one choking attempt, all of which he evaded with ease. He found it easy to predict her attacks thanks to her lack of clothing which allowed him to see almost every muscle movement; nevertheless, she was surprisingly skilled and fast, so much that he had almost missed a few dodges no matter how easy she was to predict. It was time to take his fiery opponent seriously, so he began the swift dance coordinating his feet and hands in an offensive approach.

His eyes caught her smirk and the glitter in her emerald eyes as she swung another punch towards him. He effortlessly grabbed her arm and instead of her body tensing up, he felt it become extremely light as he tumbled down on his back pulling her weight over him. The moment he let go of her arm to let her fall, she pulled her weight up and did a back flip. He propelled himself up with a smile. She landed on her feet and immediately crouched down extending one leg and swinging it towards his feet. He jumped and quickly grabbed her arm once again and then the other as she stood up. With his strength and balance he could easily hold her tight as she tried to free herself. Her body suddenly stopped squirming and she deviously smiled at him. She intercepted a kick aimed at his face between both their bodies which Spike barely dodged. His eyes widened with amusement.

"I see you've been practicing." He commented, her leg seductively resting on his body, but he still refused to let go.

"I'm like wine." She smirked.

"An acquired taste?" He cocked an eyebrow.

"I get better with time." She pulled him towards her and flipped him on his back. She landed on a side split atop him, a highly compromising position. Refusing to budge on his grip of her arms, he rolled her to the side while she curled her leg in an attempt to knee him. Now she lay against the cold metal ground, his body hovering over hers.

"I win."

"Please, I had you pinned just two minutes ago."

"Keyword is had." He stared deeply at her now. Her emerald eyes had engulfed with him with their devious gleam and spark of life. He wanted that spark. He wanted to feel that desire and passion within her. She glared back at him with surprise as his face neared hers. Nothing his brain could tell his body would stop him from what he was about to do. Something within him had seized total control and all he could do was go along with it. It wouldn't have mattered how much his mind protested. His lips longed for hers and so he kissed her. The simplicity of the action had attracted him, overlooking the many complications this would muster up. Her red lips were warm, soothing, and she tasted a silky kind of sweet. He felt Faye kiss him back, her tongue approaching his hesitantly. Not a single thought evolved in his mind. Everything had suddenly vanished the minute had had been enveloped in her taste.

However, nothing good or simplistic can stay that way. He felt the cold metal gunpoint against the side of his head. The realization hit him like cold water that he had let her arms slither away and in that time she had pulled the gun from his pants. Their lips unlocked and a stoic expression fell on his face. She urged him with the gun to stand up and he did as she asked. He raised his hands while she glared at him viciously and perhaps a bit confused.

"You…" She uttered with a hint of resentment. "What the hell are you thinking?"

He shrugged and it only angered her more. It was the truth though, he had no idea what he was thinking. His body took over and the impulse acted on its own. He had never desired to kiss her before then and he didn't after it either.

"Why did you come back Spike?" He shrugged again. "I won't let you fuck with me." She pulled her gun from his head.

"I didn't mean anything by it. It just happened." He uttered, before he could wish he hadn't. She laughed at this and glared at him cynically.

"You really are something. You stride in here all smooth and careless, and then you pull that sick sad anxiety shit on me. Am I supposed to feel sorry for you?" He smirked. _Man, she's a bitch._

"I came back as a courtesy. Some guy threatened you using my name. It pissed me off. I figured I'd straighten things out."

"Ah-huh," She licked her lips. "What a real gentleman you are. By the way Spike, those pills you're taking for your fits? Yeah, they're anxiety pills. I would have never guessed that you were done in the head. Your fits…they're fake." She paused with a cynical smile curling on her lips. "They're all in your head, because apparently you can't handle whatever it is you can't handle. They're called Non-Epileptic Seizures, but maybe you already knew that." She cocked her head to the side. "Are you having any delusions too? You seeing your dead relatives?" She chuckled. "Man, you really _really_ are something."

His heart pounded like a thousand drums from the anger the flowed within him. She had hit a sore wound and he hated it. He snapped and decided to return the favor.

"What about you? You and your little sullen apartment, crying in a corner like a little girl and taking your sleeping pills so you can forget about it all." Her eyes immediately widened.

"You bastard." She aimed her gun at his head. "You spied on me! You were alive and spying on me! I could kill you." She shouted. His face had been glossed over with numbness.

"Do it." Her eyelids trembled. "If you want to do it so much, then do it." He said as his eyes fixated on hers. She pulled the trigger and the gun went off. Jet's head quickly peered from the lounge staring in disbelief.

"Oi, you two! What the hell is going on?" He yelled.

"Do you really wish you were dead that much?" The bullet had impacted the beam behind, only an inch away from the path to his head. She fixated her glare upon his mechanical eye, the one that could see the past according to him.

"I didn't ask to be brought back." He simply uttered.

"Neither did I!" A sullen and prideful Faye left for the hangar. Jet opened his mouth as if to say something, but he seemingly decided against it. He sighed exasperatedly and left Spike alone in the hall to deal with his inner turmoil. He lit a cigarette and stared blankly at the empty hall recalling Faye's furiously hurt eyes from a moment ago. That glint of emotion and passion had always resided in her verdant orbs. Carefree and passionate as well, that was Faye Valentine. He spit his cigarette out with a disgusted look on his face. He envied her. He had always disliked her because of that, because she had realized something when she awoke from her death that he had not. She wanted to live. Despite the fact that she had nothing, no memories, no past, nothing to live for, Faye was conceited enough to want to live for herself.

"Faye has something you don't." Julia interjected. Her figure walked down the hall like just another normal person deciding to join him for a chat.

"What would that be?" He had resigned to how real she always appeared to be.

"Faith. She has suffered just like everyone else. There aren't degrees of suffering, but different types. She has faith deep inside her that she was brought back for a reason and that's good enough for her. Why isn't for you?" She leaned against the cold metal wall with her tragic sapphire glare seeping into him.

"I guess because I never had a reason to live until you came along." She shook her head.

"All of us have wanted to die at some point in time. I stayed alive for you," she said.

"Don't you dare blame me!" Figures that the first time he would ever raise his voice at Julia would be when she was dead. Was she really saying what he thought she was? She stayed alive because it comforted him, but he made a choice. He chose to fight Vicious and it got the point where she couldn't stay alive anymore.

"Nothing you can do for a dead woman." She whispered and walked away fading into the distance.

He sighed. He hoped he would at least sleep that night.

* * *

They rushed into the house like roaches invading in the night. The other men searched for any documents and rampaged the house to shade their crime as a petty robbery. What they planned to do would be much worse than the damage they were already causing. Spike scouted out the smaller rooms, a predator searching for his prey in a cold calculated way. He scurried from room to room until he finally ended up in the bedroom at the end of the hall. Details of the room were vague. He could see a desk with large shelves attached and many books with little ornaments neatly placed for decoration. The twin bed had covers of some kind of light pastel color and a small doll at the head lying on the pillow.

Spike heard the cocking of gun and turned his head to the side. The man stood there in a corner, the shadows shielding his face.

"What do you want?" He aimed his weapon at Spike. "I won't do a thing for you syndicate bastards."

* * *

Spike woke up with groan. The dream had come again with the little sleep he would obtain from night to night. He yawned and lazily stretched his arms behind him hearing every joint from his spine to his knuckles crack. He winced, what else could he expect from the restless sleep? He scoffed, sure he was sleeping now, but it only made him feel even more tired than when he went to bed. Grabbing his metal cup and toothbrush, he headed for the bathroom. He figured that they would probably be en route back to Mars again. He ached to take a break from the Bebop by now. The last three weeks had been less than pleasant. After the incident with Faye, she had disappeared for a week and then had come back apparently with the sole purpose to aggravate him. They had already gone for two bounties and he had no idea why he had come along. The last thing he had wanted was to deal with her. _Is this why I came back?_ He stared at himself in the small mirror Faye had hung there and shrugged.

After eating an orange for breakfast, he headed towards the bridge to see the progress of their course back to Mars. He passed by the stairs near the lounge spotting Faye sitting there filing her nails. The mere presence of her now irritated him, but before he could say something to annoy her back, Jet had entered into the lounge from the hall that led to the bridge.

"Oh good, you both are here." Jet said. Spike raised an eyebrow at him and Faye simply lifted her head to stare at the old comrade.

"What is it? How long until we get to Mars?" Faye asked tapping the nail filer against one of the rails on the staircase. Spike twitched.

"Would you stop that!" He shouted back at Faye.

"What the hell did I do?" She spat back.

"Hey!" Jet called to them, but both of them ignored him. "Hey! You two, enough!" Spike and Faye focused their eyes on the angry man. Spike noted Jet's squinting eyes and the curling of his mouth that he did when he felt irritated. The man was beyond annoyed. "I have had it with you two. You've been at it nonstop for two weeks!"

"Been at it?" Spike

"I have no idea what you're talking about." Faye commented and continued filing her nails. Jet's face contorted in such a way that Spike thought he would scream.

"You have no idea? What about the broken remote to begin with?"

Both Faye and Spike winced at that. Spike remembered quite well what had happened. He had simply wanted to watch some old classics, nothing that Faye could ever appreciate and she had suddenly interrupted him with some pretentious idea to watch the news.

"Hey, I was watching that!" Spike had shouted when she had taken the remote and changed the channel.

"I want to watch the news. We need to look out for bounties you know." Spike grumbled loudly and then snatched the remote back from her.

"I said, I was watching that." He changed it back to the kung fu channel. Faye pried the remote from him.

"And I don't care. I want the news." It changed back to the news.

"Figures that a woman like you could never appreciate Bruce Lee!" And then it changed back.

"Screw Bruce pissin Lee, I said news!" Then it changed again. Finally, the face off started and they both tugged at the remote until it snapped in two.

Spike had to admit that it had been a stupid senseless fight and he could see why Jet would be pissed. Nevertheless, it had all been Faye's fault, if she hadn't come and interrupted his show none of it would have happened.

"It was all his fault! We needed to watch the news and he wouldn't let me." Faye immediately defended herself. Spike grumbled and whined until Jet told them both to shut up once again.

"And that time with the damn coffee?" Jet muttered and Faye snickered. Spike twitched at the thought of the memory. It had been early in the morning and all he had wanted was some coffee. So he asked Faye for some coffee, she seemed cozy making it, and out of nowhere she threw a hot cup of it in his lap. Okay, so maybe he shouldn't have said he wanted some of her 'crappy' coffee, but still, she could have seriously injured him

"Can we help if she's psycho?" Spike simply commented.

"You asked for it!" Faye shouted and threw her nail filer at his head. Spike caught it and he mockingly filed his nails as well.

"Mattaku," was all that Jet could utter. "And let's not forget your constant fights over food."

At this Spike stood up and pointed menacingly at Faye. "She hid food from us! I simply took back what was rightfully mine!"

"Rightfully yours! I had one apple hidden. One apple! It doesn't excuse you running off with my plate of food and eating it in one swallow!"

"Unbelievable, what about you shrinking her clothes Spike?" Jet seemed frustrated at the fact he had to play daddy. Spike snickered at both this and the shrinking of Faye's clothing.

"It's not funny!" She yelled at him.

"Well, who the hell uses tumble dry? It was taking too long, so I was considerate and decided to speed up the process." Of course, by speeding up the process he had shrunken half of her clothes to one third of her size. "You'd probably still wear them."

"See, he's done horrible things to me none stop!"

"Faye, you bolted his ship to the hull of MY ship. That's taken some serious money and repairs." Jet ran a hand on his bald head. Spike nodded righteously and Jet glared at him. "You put coffee grind in her cockpit and her fuel tank."

"Hello, I think bolting of a ship caused much more damage than that." Spike replied in defense. He didn't know how the shrew had done it, but she had bolted the tail of his Swordfish II with a chain to the hull. When he tried to take off he fell backwards like a little bug scratching the hull fiercely and damaging parts of his ship.

"Jesus, I don't believe this. Less than a week ago, I thought things were looking up. You both working together for that bounty."

Spike smiled. That had been a good one. It was the only time in two weeks that Faye and he had cooperated in anything. They had found themselves in a lot of trouble over what should have been a simple catch. They had expected this bounty to be nothing too complicated. An embezzler that committed up to 100 million woolongs worth of fraud would probably turn out to be a nice scared boy in a suit looking for money to save him. But with that money, he had purchased some heavy muscle with a grand display of artillery to protect him. The Bebop crew had traced an old hidden account from which he bought an old mansion in Tijuana and they headed that way. Faye had charmed her way in, but soon after she found herself in the middle of crossfire.

Spike had rushed in the house shooting and dodging, trying to make his way to Faye. He finally stumbled upon her in a long hall. He sneaked up on her and she responded by aiming the gun at his head.

"You're late." She whispered and he smirked.

"I guess he wasn't into your kind of charm."

"No, he knew who I was. I'm becoming a little too popular in the bounty world." She responded calmly. She then suddenly pulled him off to the side and started shooting. He saw some men at the opposite side of the hall and started shooting at them. They stood back to back each shooting respectively at both ends of the hall.

They caught the bounty and the man was worth a total of 50 million woolongs, half of what he owed. After damages both Faye and Spike had cause mainly to each other the few days before, the expendable sum barely came to two million. Nevertheless, it had been their best bounty yet.

"But then, yesterday happened." Jet interrupted the memory, his brow twitching fiercely. "Because you two were bickering like an old married couple we let the bounty get away and Faye, you gambled most of the money we had left."

"I put myself in some serious risk for that money. I feel I earned it." Faye smiled and Spike only shook his head. Jet took a deep breath and sighed exasperatedly.

"I can't deal with this anymore. You either both get married and have an excuse for fighting, or you get off my ship before you blow it up!"

"I would never marry…" Spike and Faye said simultaneously.

"A good for nothing, lost in his misery, inconsiderate prick…"

"A slutty, one night stand, pretentious tomboy…"

"Like him!"

"Like her!"

Jet flailed his arms with frustration and left the lounge. Spike looked after him and ran his fingers through his frizzled dark hair.

"I think we pissed him off good." Faye commented standing and heading for the small fridge in the hall. She pulled out two cans of Pippu and handed one to Spike. Both of them barely noticed her gesture and he simply nodded to thank her. She sat across from him.

"Yeah, well, he's right we have been behaving like babies." He opened his can and took a sip. He almost choked and then laughed. She raised an eyebrow at him.

"What's so funny?"

He shook his head wiping the bit of soda that had escaped his lips. "You should have seen your face when you saw your clothes all shrunken up." Instead of handing him an angry retort, Faye Valentine laughed.

"You should have seen yours when I bolted your ship. I had touched your precious baby and you freaked like an old lady." They laughed in unison. After their laughter had ceased she stood up and began to walk towards the bridge.

"You know, we should buy some ginger tea." She said momentarily halting and turning back to face him.

"Tea?"

"Yeah, it will probably be better than those pills you're taking. I've always found it soothing."

"Yeah maybe." She smiled so sincerely that it caught Spike off guard. Her features had suddenly become so gentle and beautiful. His heart suddenly stopped and his eyes widened. Her brow furrowed and she glanced at him with sudden worry in her emerald orbs. She took a few steps back towards him.

"Hey Spike, what's wrong?" She asked. His eyes could only focus momentarily on her and then back at the figure walking towards them. Julia. It was the first time he saw Julia and Faye in the same room. For some reason, this disturbed him more than he could bear. "Spike!" She glanced behind her at the empty hall as if trying to catch a glimpse of what Spike was seeing. Julia smiled at him and then walked up the stairs to the cabin area. He sighed.

"What is wrong with you?" Faye tried to grasp his attention once again.

"It's nothing." He whispered.

"Then why?" She barely voiced, confused and lost as to what she had witnessed.

"I thought I saw Julia." Her eyes widened and she took a few steps back almost frightened by him.

"Don't be stupid and joke like that." She turned around and headed for her room. He heard the door slide open and then shut close.

_My reactions never cease to amaze me._

Ch. 7 Preview:

His heart raced and his tremors threatened to resurface. He read the line written diabolically on the paper. It hadn't registered at first and after several times of re-reading it, Spike Spiegel swallowed hard, an ominous feeling mounting up in ball in his throat.

"There he is. The dead catch, Henri Reve." Jet muttered and Spike's eyes shot up towards the computer screen. The man's dark hair, eyes and the round features of his face registered immediately.

Did you guys mind the preview? It'll probably be the only time I'll do this. I just wanted to give you a little something, because it might take me more than a week to get the next chapter out just because I like staying two chapters ahead. Sorry it was such a long chapter. :D/

Thanks for reading!


	7. Seven

Thanks for coming back again and again to read my story. I am so happy to have loyal readers, it makes me all happy and tingly. Okay, enough of my genkiness and on with the story already!

To my reviewers: Thank you. I am so glad that you think I'm keeping them in character, that's very important to me. Although, I must confess it's getting harder to work with their character development and not cross that point of OOC-ness at the same time. So your suggestions are definitely welcomed. I don't want to reply much more, I'm afraid I'll reveal too much :) Thanks for reading and reviewing guys.

By the way, I know Spike was supposedly born on Mars? Do any of you guys ever hear the city where he was born mentioned? Also, about the woolongs currency thing, it's supposed to be similar to the yen value, but let's pretend a woolong is just a bit less than a dollar for the sake of this fic.

Okay, now for real, on with the show!

Standard disclaimer applies.

**Breaking Point**

---7---

Spike Spiegel didn't quite understand why seeing Faye and Julia yesterday in the same room at the same time had unsettled him. The whole night after that, he had spent it wondering about Julia and her reasons for appearing at that precise moment. He laughed at the irony of it all. Now, the one time he wanted her present she wouldn't show up at all. His thoughts trailed towards Faye, an impulse to apologize to her lingering in his mind. He didn't know why or really cared to, so instead he handed it off as the crazy effects from lack of sleep.

He peered out his door glancing from side to side attempting to detect any voices or steps. Anyone else would find these as desperate measures, but at the moment all he wanted was to train quietly and without any interruptions. That meant no encounters with Faye or Julia, or even Jet. Not that he could help the whole Julia situation, but he might as well pretend he still had some control over his crazy life. He sighed of relief observing the Bebop to be desolate. They had arrived to Mars by now; he knew this by the heavy weight of his body, caused by the higher gravity of the red planet.

Spike roamed the calm halls of the old fishing ship and descended the stairs that led into the lounge. He knew he had claimed peace too soon. As he strolled by the bathroom, the metal door whizzed open and Faye fatefully stumbled into him. He received the run-in with a grumble, but didn't say anything otherwise. She barely glanced his way as she caught her balance and continued moving. Was she scared of him? Probably, he figured, he had caught her off guard and shocked her one too many times. _Hell, I've shocked myself a chock full too._

"Faye," His will spoke without even seeking the approval of his conscience. _Damn mouth. Damn my impulses. _Then again his motto had always been 'whatever happens, happens.' The silent pale woman stopped at his call, but remained with her back to him.

"Don't Spike." Her tone of voice startled him. She sounded so calm and defenseless at the same time and it bothered him. It bothered him that he kept discovering sides to this woman, layers and pieces that he wished would have stayed hidden. It bothered him because the more he saw of these mysterious and never-ending fluctuations in her personality the more he wanted to know of her. The more he wanted to pry and explore.

"I just wanted," He started but she immediately stopped him.

"I said don't." She paused, her shoulders slightly rising and then falling as she took as deep breath. "Don't, because yesterday I realized that we'll just never get along, you know? That we'll just never like each other very much and that's just how it is."

He told himself to say something, every part of him screamed for him to do so, but the thoughts in his mind undulated in nonsensical patterns and no words could form from emotions that he, himself, couldn't explain. She glanced back at him smiling that sad sincere smile of hers that churned his stomach. Not out of disgust, but a sensation that frightened him, because a part of him knew quite well what it meant. He was starting to like the tomboy, to feel for her, to understand her.

She walked off leaving him with no other choice but to shrug it off. If he paid any heed to his own feelings and thoughts and emotions—all the overdramatic, analytic and empathic deliberations that women often liked to torture themselves with—he would have gone crazy by now. Assuming that Julia and his tremors hadn't driven him past that point already. He went into one of the large cargo rooms no one used and practiced there for several hours. He then showered and put on his new trademark outfit, black pants and a black long sleeve shirt. It suited his handsome features exquisitely; however, it made his brooding more like sullen grieving. At least, his appearance remained carefree but not so lethargic and untidy as was his usual just less than a year ago.

He heard a few clicking sounds echoing in the ship and realized that Jet must be nurturing his bonsai.

"Taking care of your babies?"

"A man like you could never understand this art. The world of man revolves around balance. This is my way of keeping that balance." Jet grumbled under his breath as he snipped a verdant tress off. Spike chuckled at the man's usual wise mutterings.

"And the shrew?" Spike asked.

"Out, something or other about tracking a bounty. She refuses to tell." Jet took another snip at his trees and then grumbled.

"Well, that's expected."

"She seemed different today," Jet said placing the scissors down and grabbing the watering can instead.

"Different?" Spike inquired not entirely surprised.

"Yeah, it's odd. I think she's up to something." Jet shrugged.

"Heh, probably," Spike said whilerunning his finger through his hair.

"What about your mystery man?"

"Tonight, I'm going to watch the weather in town." Spike replied and Jet nodded at him. Another typical conversation with Jet. Spike never really had to explain himself to Jet and even if his impulses frustrated his old comrade, he would eventually accept them. At least, that consistency remained in his life.

Spike roamed the lively streets of Alba, the largest of the tri-cities that also included Tharsis and Olympus. The size of the city had a good logic to it since it was built on the largest crater on Mars as far as area goes. Everyone referred to Alba as "the Metro Area" of Mars, since it held most of the booming businesses, the art, the culture, the diversity and the celebrity life on the planet. The colonized red planet had become the modern-day world empire in terms of power. Tharsis was Spike's birth place and home of his past. He hated everything about Tharsis, but he tended to welcome Alba with open arms and the easy way you could get lost within the crowds.

He snooped around the bars in the area where had found the man who had attacked Faye. No one had heard of a Spike Spiegel, except for one or two people who recalled something about him being a bounty hunter. He hadn't admitted it to Jet or anyone for that matter, but it worried him. The fact that someone would randomly spend 200,000 woolongs on just scaring people around unnerved him.

_There's something important I'm missing. _He tried recalling what perhaps he could be overlooking. He smoked a cigarette exasperated at his careless memory. _Oh well, I guess it probably wasn't that important after all._

"The French woman!" He suddenly shouted in the street. He rushed to "La Tour Eiffel" and asked the bartender if he had seen Natalie around. The man told him it was her week off.

"Have you seen a woman in here, French, black hair, wavy, dark eyes, very attractive?" The man shook his head. Spike sighed.

"You should try the French Riviera on West end. All the French slither out of their holes on weekends to go to the Riviera." The man suggested. Spike smirked. The French Riviera was the name given to the only French district in the city and in the planet for that matter. The French were few of the surviving indo-European cultures to remain strong since the Gate Accident.

He roamed the upbeat streets of the French Riviera with their casinos, hotels, and Broadway theaters. Spike didn't even know where to start, but he figured he would eventually get some hint or direction as to where to go. His life always seemed to work out that way

Indeed, he received a sign thanks to Faye Valentine. He spotted her at the entrance of an exclusive club called "Toulousse." He smirked as he observed her attire. She wore work clothes, a black dress tight at the top with a flowing skirt that fell an inch or two past her knees. She had a black shawl embroidered with gold and silver designs that hung at her elbows and a tall elegant demeanor thanks to her four inch black stiletto heels. Her hair had been sleeked back into a bun which had a small four petal red flower on the side. Yes, definitely work clothes, Faye Valentine was looking for her prey.

She whispered to the man holding a list at the entrance with a radiant smile painted on her glowing face. He quickly searched through his list and smiled.

"Mrs. Dupont, yes, but it says here we're expecting Mr. Dupont as well."

"Yes, he'll be around." Her smile didn't waver as she handed him an invitation card.

Spike smirked. "Well, the night is young." He dusted himself and adjusted his black shirt. He walked over to the man and smiled charmingly. "Mr. Dupont," He told the man. "My wife should have arrived earlier."

"Yes, Monsieur, she just went in and said you'd be following soon." The host extended his arm towards the door and the two large men on each side of the entrance opened that tinted glass doors to allow Spike inside. He observed everything around him from the glass candelabra hanging high up from the colorful ceilings to the many tables of men and women, the waitresses in cancan style costumes and the wooden dance floor in the middle of the large ballroom. The mellow sounds of the orchestra filled the room full of refined eager drunkards and beautiful women trying to snatch another rich guy. This was the pinnacle of where all the writers, painters, activists, actors, and even important social figures gathered to share whatever lavish ideas they thought would be amusing to discuss or slur for that matter.

His mismatched brown eyes searched for the astute woman. He caught a glimpse of Faye striding across the dance floor who had already charmed her way into a man's arms. She gracefully followed his lead through the soft ballad, and Spike smirked knowing that the man was probably clueless as to who was really the one leading. Faye Valentine had that seductress air that enchanted men and he felt certain every single one of them knew it, but the danger and the sex appeal she produced dulled their senses to the point they didn't care. Spike had been a womanizer once long ago. He knew exactly how women worked their charms and that would always be what he would use to charm them back.

"May I interrupt this dance, Mrs. Dupont." Spike had made his way to the dance floor and by enunciating the 'Missus' he quickly caught her partner's attention.

"Mr. Dupont I presume?" The man smiled uncomfortably. Spike simply nodded. The rich blond reluctantly let go of Faye and swayed his hand in a welcoming manner to Spike. Faye stared at Spike in disbelief, her left eyebrow twitching angrily. At that moment, the soft ballad transitioned into another melody through a short cello solo. Spike recognized the slow subtle tune and high pitch of the intermingling violins, a tango.

"What are you doing here?" She asked with her teeth clenched fiercely into a smile.

"I should ask you the same." He placed his hand on her lower back as the accordion joined in and the violins built up to a loud pitch. He suddenly pulled her waist against his hips. He smirked as her eyes widened. She resignedly placed her other hand on her hips as he swooped her down, her waist still locked against his body. Their eyes met and she cocked an eyebrow at him with a hint of amusement and annoyance. He led her across the floor dragging their feet in intertwined steps.

"I didn't think you could tango," She said at their first sharp turn.

"You'd be surprised how much tango is like fighting." He replied dragging their steps back to the other side. The piano now joined in the melody adding a quicker pace and allowing Spike to lead Faye with sharper and quicker steps.

"Are you here just to aggravate me?" She continued to question him, her radiant smile never fading from her crimson lips. He grabbed her thigh and brought her knee up to his hips. She wrapped her leg around his thigh breathing in deeply before he swooped her down again.

"That and I'm here on business too. You provided me with a nice pass." He told her as their eyes met again. She swung her foot out tip first sharply from side to side several times.

"You stalking me again?"

He strolled half way around her until he was at her back. He grabbed her waist and pulled her again to him this time spinning her along with him, body tight against body.

"Don't flatter yourself. I happened to be in the neighborhood." The dance of jagged steps, swings, and swoops continued. He smiled at the velvety and smooth way her skin felt every time he brushed against it and the way she could follow him with no problem. Faye amazed him. It was the first time he would admit that to himself. It hadn't surprised him that Faye could be so skilled at what she did. After all, here was a woman awoken from her death less than four years ago. She had been betrayed and left alone and in that time she learned to fight like a skilled martial artist, to gamble like the legend Poker Alice, and to pilot a monopod like she had been born on one. Faye's versatility had always impressed him and he excused it as a tomboy quality of hers. Of course, it could be of no surprise that a woman like her could tango.

Spike had picked up several quirks from living the syndicate life, and one of them was, oddly enough the tango. An old woman had taught it to him, an old friend of Annie's. The old woman told him that in life there were two ways to fight. One was to stubbornly attack your opponent like a blind man and the other was to use their attacks to your advantage and synchronize them with yours. This had made so much sense to him at the time that he asked her what her way of fighting was. The old woman had smiled deviously at him, her gray eyes holding incredible secrets within them that he could only imagine. Rosa, that was her name, replied that she didn't fight. She'd tango.

The Dupont's had drawn quite the attention to the dance floor by now. The chemistry that flowed with each of their rhythmic steps had appealed to the crowd. A few couples still danced the jagged steps of the tango, but the center of attention lay on the peculiarly intriguing couple in the middle of the wooden floor.

The accordion and piano slowly faded out as the violins and cello lethargically hit a few low notes and the song ended with Spike and Faye's stares interlaced. The crowd began clapping and they both joined in the roaring of the club. Spike and Faye smiled at the guests surrounding them in the dance floor as polite courtesy, and then he smirked at her. She carefully pulled him away to a corner and glared at him.

"We've drawn too much attention, so my night of work in here is over thanks to you."

"And who are you chasing after?" Spike asked with an indifferent tone.

"No way Spike, this is my catch." Faye stated and headed for the exit with Spike following close behind. "Don't ever do that again." Her voice sounded serious and annoyed.

As soon as they reach northwest main on the French Riviera they turned their separate ways. Spike glanced back at Faye's figure strolling away from him and simpered. He drew his hands into his pockets and walked down the melodious street with an inner sense of satisfaction.

* * *

The man held a small pistol in his hand. Spike smirked knowing that the man would prove to be an easy target. Spike contracted his leg muscles about to raise it to kick the pistol from the man's hand when a room behind him suddenly exploded. Spike ducked as the force and debris rung from behind.

"I will never let a dirty syndicate like yours own me." The man spoke unflinching from the impact of his bomb. Spike understood now. This man thought they were there to kidnap him. Vicious rushed in the room. He had been supposed to scout the basement and probably averted the explosion because of it. Spike noted that their target had been distracted by Vicious' sudden entrance. He kicked the pistol out of the man's hand and then kicked him down. The man didn't seem surprised, instead he propped himself on his knees.

"Notre Pere, qui es aux cieux, que ton nom soit sanctifie…" The man began praying. Spike brought out his gun, but the man didn't even notice.

"We have four men down and no time to gather anything. The bastard. ISSP will be here any minute." Vicious grunted. "Finish it." He left.

Spike's hand trembled as he aimed the gun the man's head.

"…Mais delivre-nous du mal. Amen." The man paused and then glanced up at Spike, his radiant dark eyes staring ferociously at him. Spike cocked the gun and pulled the trigger.

"Alyssa." The man had whispered before the shot dove into his head.

As Spike exited the room his eye caught a small frame on the small desk. It was of the man and a small girl with brown curls in his arms.

Spike wrapped his quaking arms around himself as he awoke from his cold nightmare. He reached for the pill bottle under his bed and realized it was empty. Muttering a curse under his breath, he threw the bottle against the wall and then dug his head between his knees

"You can't keep on like this." Julia said. Spike looked up to see Julia picking up the bottle he had just thrown. She eyed the label curiously and then set it down by the table next to his bed. Sighing she sat down by him, tilting her head to the side. The blond curls cascaded down her shoulder and her eyes glowed a verdant hue. She touched the hand that rested on his knee and smiled. "That was a horrible dream."

"I hadn't met you then. It happened five years before I met you." He muttered.

"His name is Henri Reve, a scientist from Biometrics Lab." Vicious had told him handing young Spike the picture. "It will go down tonight and word is you're our man."

"What did he do?"

"Nothing big. White Tigers are planning to recruit him and that makes him a liability for the Red Dragons."

"We can't have that, now can we?" Spike leered

* * *

"I don't know why I'm having dreams about this now." Spike commented as soon as he noticed Julia standing in his room again in the darkness. She often was waiting for him when he woke up.

"I know. It was so long ago." Julia glanced away from him and focused on the door. A fist forcefully pounded on the metal. Spike ignored it and instead placed his other hand on top of Julia's. He then caressed her cheek and she smiled again. His tremors had stopped and so had the pounding. Julia stood up again and stared at Spike expectantly. He propped himself up from the bed and got dressed in his black pants and shirt. He picked the bottle up and just before he exited, he glanced back towards his bed only to find the room completely desolate. He sighed resignedly and walked through the door.

He found Jet sitting in front of the computer with an exasperated expression on his face.

"So you're finally up," Jet commented, his eyes never leaving the computer screen. "I have to deal with both of you fighting and your damn brooding and now that crazed woman is chasing after a fake."

"A fake?" Spike slipped a cigarette in his mouth.

"Yeah, a fake bounty. My old colleague at ISSP tipped me. The bounty was put on a man who's been dead for over ten years." Spike laughed and Jet grumbled. "On top of that, she takes off and doesn't say when she'll be back."

"Is that why you almost busted down my door?" Spike inquired with a hint of annoyance in his tone.

"Oh! I almost forgot!" Jet suddenly started and reached into his vest pulling out a small envelope. "This came for you. You owe me 2000 woolongs."

"You're getting senile, Jet." Spike mocked taking the white envelope. It had his name written in cursive on the front. He opened it finding a small slip of paper inside with a message for him.

His heart raced and his tremors threatened to resurface. He read the line written diabolically on the paper several times. It hadn't registered at first and now that it had, Spike Spiegel swallowed hard, an ominous feeling mounting up in ball in his throat.

"There he is. The dead catch, Henri Reve." Jet muttered and Spike's eyes shot up towards the computer screen. The man's dark hair, eyes and the round features of his face registered immediately.

"Where is she?" Spike murmured. Jet glanced back at him perplexed by his reaction.

"Hey Spike, you don't look too thrilled."

"Jet." His mismatched russet eyes stared at Jet with a disoriented gleam. "Where is Faye?" Jet glared silently at him for a few seconds and finally spoke up.

"She muttered something about going to the dog tracks."

Spike ran out of the lounge towards the hangar not waiting for Jet's reaction. Jet ran after him calling his name, but Spike boarded the Swordfish without hesitation.

* * *

The tango scene: I hope that it fit in well and that it carried out the message and foreshadowing that I meant behind it. : I'm kind of growing a little wary of the characters and I hope you like the way I'm headed with their character development. This was meant to be as one of the most crucial scenes between Faye and Spike, and it's how I see the crux of their relationship which leads into what happens next and you'll see.

Tango scene inspired by Astor Piazzolla's Tango Fugata.

! It's going to get good! I promise. :)!


	8. Eight

Heh heh :-s sorry it took so much time and sorry it's such a fricken long chapter. Anyway, a couple of author's notes before you read on. I don't know if you remember the name Alyssa, the name Henri Reve says before he dies… Anyway, this is NOT the same "Alisa" as in the series. This is not Jet's ex-girlfriend, okay? Good. I forgot all about her when I was writing this, so I just wanted to give you a heads up.

I messed with this chapter a ton, and it underwent some serious revisions. I hope you guys like this chapter, it was exhausting, but rewarding. Chapter nine will be out in about five days, so this coming Friday, just cause I took kind of long to update.

I also added little between certain paragraph breaks to help deter some of the confusion I've heard people mention.

To my reviewers: You guys rock so much, you all keep me going with this story. Also, when you review it gives me a chance to check out stories you've written that I may have missed and let me say, there's some serious awesome writers reviewing this story and I am honored that you are reading it.

To everyone: Thanks for reading:x

Standard disclaimer applies.

**Breaking Point**

---8---

_Faster, Spike._

_The world won't stop for you._

_Faster!_

Spike Spiegel always kept two guns stored away in his cockpit for cases like this. He tried using the communicator several times and he cursed at the fact that she wouldn't pick it up. It wasn't his nerves, no, he couldn't be nervous. It was fear that something would happen that he wouldn't be able to stop. Someone else might die because of him. His gaze fell over Alba's skyline expectantly as he headed towards the dog tracks north of the city. He skimmed the parking area for her ship and didn't see it anywhere. The lump in his throat urgently urged him to move faster. He had to find Faye and find her now. Needing as much information as he could get, he phoned Jet.

"What the hell do you think you're doing running out like that? What is wrong with you already?" Jet yelled at him with a flustered expression.

"Do you know anything else about her bounty?" Spike inquired with an urgent tone. Jet brows furrowed on the small conference screen.

"An anonymous tip on here says he was seen last week at a jazz bar, but Spike that's impossible."

"Is the bar called La Tour Eiffel?"

"How did you know?—Spike, this man is dead, didn't you hear me?" Jet rubbed his bald head frustratedly.

"I know. I killed him." Spike somberly told him and shut the communication off ignoring any concerns his partner may have had. He had to get there before she did.

* * *

_Faye took a sip of her drink and frowned. A woman sat next to her and offered to buy her the next drink._

_"What's the occasion?" Faye asked her._

_"I need a favor. I don't trust men, but I saw you handle a bounty the other day." Faye cocked an eyebrow._

_"Is that so? Sorry, I don't do favors."_

_"How does one million woolongs sound?" Faye tilted her head to the side and stared closely at the woman._

_"In that case, I'm Faye Valentine, pleased to meet you." Faye replied with smile._

_The woman smiled. "I'm Alyssa."_

Spike cruised down the street that led to his destination. The Red Tail's white metal sparkled under the sun atop the rooftop of the building where the bar was located. He landed on a strip nearby and raced down the building stairs. The adrenaline kicked in and his heart drummed with each heavy step. Exiting towards the street, his mind dwelled on the note he had received moments earlier.

**_Spike Spiegel,_**

**_I_****_ will destroy that which you care for the most._**

**_Alyssa._**

Green eyes.

Violet hair.

Pale skin.

Yellow band.

Full red lips.

Yellow, green, violet. Yellow…

Inside the bar, he scouted out every single face his eyes encountered. He immediately demanded from the bartender whether he had seen a woman in there earlier matching Faye's description. The bartender nodded at him and told him that moments ago she had left accompanied by another woman. Spike rushed back outside and glanced both ways down the street.

Yellow, green, violet.

There was no one there. He raced to the rooftop to Faye's abandoned ship. Inside the cockpit, he found her key and a clear case wrapped with a red bow. His mismatched russet eyes narrowed on the silver disc within it.

Red.

They watched solemnly and after a few moments of registering the situation, they stared at the computer screen in disbelief. Spike tried to swallow several times, but the lump of ice choking in his throat refused to let him. He recalled the time when she had been caught by Vicious, trapped by the comatose god bounty, and almost lost in Vincent's grip. Faye Valentine had always put herself in stupid places, at the most inopportune times, almost getting her killed. This time it hadn't been about careless moves, selfish wants, or greedy motives. Someone had set a carefully calculated trap.

Spike and Jet watched Faye sitting at the bar and the camera approaching her. The camera's voice was that of a woman who had just offered Faye one million woolongs. The woman's name was Alyssa.

Faye walked out with Alyssa into the dark alley by the bar. Her incandescent emerald eyes glared in the direction above the camera. She was looking dead onto Alyssa. Not wavering her intense focus on the French woman, she reached for her gun tucked behind and pointed it straight above the camera's angle.

"Who the hell are you?" She demanded cocking her gun, the point aimed straight for Alyssa. "Do you really think I'm that stupid?" Faye sounded collected and smooth. Her emerald eyes sparkled with defiance.

"I would never underestimate you, Faye." Alyssa told her calmly. A miniscule blur flew from the corner of the screen into Faye's neck. She grabbed the side of her neck with one hand and with the other she shot in the direction the projectile's path. Another blur emerged from the corner of the screen, but this time the opposite side, hitting Faye right in the back of her neck.

Faye's eyes widened as if realizing what was happening to her. Her body collapsed forward and the screen went blank.

Jet went rewound to the footage back to the blurry projectiles that hit Faye's neck. He slowed down the feed and froze the clearest flame. Spike's eyes widened. They were small needles, dart-like, possibly poisoned for all they knew.

Silence fell over the Bebop as if death itself were cradling the entire ship at that moment. Spike's exasperated sigh reverberated through the ship, like a loud punch against the wall.

"Will she kill her?" Jet simply muttered. His voice sounded hard and somber. It attempted to mask his covert fatherly concern for the wild woman. Spike understood it, as insensitive as he may seem, he still comprehended Jet's protective traits.

"I don't know anything about this woman. Except that she's obviously demented and has got something against me."

"Did the note say she would kill her?"

"No, it said destroy." Spike couldn't explain what he felt at the moment. His feelings had gone mostly numb, only an apprehension that would tighten around his chest and then let go over and over again.

"Destroy what?" Jet shouted at him. He seemed sick of Spike's avoidance and stealthy demeanor. Everything that had happened to the Bebop crew had been in way far and detached from them. It had nothing to do with them particularly, just their pasts or people in their past or strangers they had unwillingly helped along. It probably seems hard to understand how the past could be so disconnected from them. Once you have suffered enough, you find that only apathy can keep you sane. Nevertheless, this time everything mattered. Perhaps it was sentimental of both of them to have grown attached to the woman, but Spike felt responsible. He felt responsible, because she knew. Alyssa somehow looked into his eyes and knew.

Spike handed the note to Jet. Jet stared it for a while and then his eyes shot up.

"Spike, this note doesn't mention Faye." His statement sounded dry. Spike didn't respond, and after a moment of thought, Jet's gestures softened. "I knew this would only mean trouble."

"I don't know how she came to that assumption." Part of him believed that lie.

"The same way you obviously did." Jet ran his hand over his bald head and then stood up. "A woman like Faye never goes down that easily," he added reassuringly, but Spike didn't respond.

Jet had it too, Spike thought. That faith Julia had talked about a while ago. He didn't resign himself to anything and he didn't blame Spike. Jet Black always kept him in check. He would always cover his back and usually save his neck. If he hadn't been so preoccupied, Spike would have realized that his old cowboy partner was one of the reasons he kept coming back to the Bebop.

"Well, we have to start somewhere and that's Henri Reve. He was a pioneer in biotechnology and nanotechnology. Biometrics Technology was part of a weapons defense program for the military. This man was a genius." Jet typed on the keyboard and the man's picture was brought up.

"All I know is that the reason they had me take him out was because he was going to be recruited by the White Tigers. I don't know for what. There's gotta be something else."

"It says he died in a robberyten years ago. His daughter, Alyssa Reve, attended Mary Magdalene's Arts and Science Academy. According to the police report, she was sent on vacation by her father a week before the alleged robbery. Never seen since then, there's no record whatsoever on her."

"She disappeared," Spike muttered.

"This is crazy. How does an 11 year old girl just disappear like that?" Jet scratched the back of his head.

"This is going to get us nowhere."

"I'll check with one of my old buddies in ISSP, see if they've got any other info on this man."

_…"Natalie, une chanson s'il vous plait." Her voice sounded deviously low._

_"La meme?" Natalie asked and her friend nodded. The woman slid off her stool and in her radiant sleek black dress she headed towards Spike. He grumbled under his breath and then outwardly masked his frustration with a smirk. She sat at his table and slid the gin towards him. He caught it and nodded a thank you. Natalie's voice emerged from the small stage on the corner. She sang with a gentle low voice "La Vie en Rose."…_

His glare fixed pensively as he recalled his first encounter with Alyssa. "I'm going to find her." Spike muttered absentmindedly.

"How are you going to do that? Faye could be anywhere."

"Not Faye. Natalie."

After only a few minutes of _painful_ persuasion from Spike sothe bartender would tell him where Natalie lived, he found himself in front of a small four-story building down the street from the bar. Spike glanced towards the fourth floor recalling the trembling voice of the bartender uttering the apartment number 4-C. As he was about to rush into the building, the sirens often heard in the distance throughout the city sounded closer than usual. Spike whipped his head around towards the urgent echoes of the patrol units. Several air and ground units headed towards the building. His heart pulsated with menacing presentiment, hesitant to climb up, but his feet willed him to move quickly.

While he hurriedly ascended the stairs, several officers had already landed in the rooftop and penetrated the building. Spike made it to the fourth floor watching officers in swat uniforms rushing through the halls. One of them pushed him to the side. Spike's heart stopped, he only sat there watching the parade of black uniforms with white lettering enter the apartment he was headed for. An officer told him that he had to leave the building and Spike only asked him a question.

"Who is she?" He asked. The officer shook his head and told him to leave.

"We've got a blonde female, shot in the chest. Possible suicide." The officer's communicator crackled. Spike breathed in with relief.

"Jet, I think someone got to Natalie before I did. They just called ISSP in. I thought this would be under local jurisdiction, unless something else is going on." Spike spoke into his communicator.

"I got you. I'll find out."

Spike wondered around town mindlessly without a single indication of where he should head or search. He scanned all his memories and every inch of his dream for a clue, for anything that could lead him to her. He should have never come back. He should have died. You couldn't take revenge on the dead, could you?

He asked around the French Riviera, about a woman named Alyssa. No one had heard of her, no one had heard of the last name Reve for a decade now. She had disappeared into thin air like Jet had said.

Dark clouds formed in Alba's sky and the rain slowly began tapping against the pavement. He watched the tumult of people disappear from the streets shielding themselves from the storm. His adrenaline kick had dissipated, so all Spike could was to keep walking. His body had gone so numb. His skin couldn't even feel the coldness of the drops invading it anymore.

He wandered into the Bebop's hangar, the rain fiercely drumming against the metal. His eyes fell on the Red Tail. He walked over to it and examined it as if trying to find at least one more clue that would lead him to her. He rubbed his mouth and chin pensively, patiently waiting for a sign that refused to show up.

Whywas heworried about the shrew? She could take care of herself. She always had, she had never needed any rescuing. What the hellwasthe matter with him?He wasworrying over nothing. It wasnothing… Goddamn nothing…

"You're afraid, because it's your fault." He heard Julia's voice echo from behind him and felt her hand tap him lightly on the shoulder. His head slowly turned to face her. The expression on her face was somber and a bit shocked. "Spike." Her mouth moved, but a new and familiar voice emerged. Her blue eyes turned emerald and her entire figure transformed into Faye's.

"Faye?" He felt scared. Faye shook her head. She placed a hand over his face forcing his eyes shut. The hand waved over his face and he opened his eyes again revealing Julia standing there again. He was losing it. "Is she dead?" Spike asked the ethereal figure, his voice trembling.

"How am I supposed to know?" Julia replied monotonously.

"But she was just here."

"No, she wasn't, Spike. You see only what you want to." Her eyes observed him for a minute.

"What?" Spike inquired impatiently as she glared at him.

"Do you want to save her? Do you love her?"

Spike glared at the blonde woman in disbelief. "You don't get to ask me that." He whispered. "You can't just show up with all your cryptic messages whenever you feel like fucking with me. I don't care anymore. This isn't a message from the beyond. This is my fucked up head telling me you're standing there, when there is nothing here." He waved his hand towards Julia and her image faded like fog.

_"Let's get out of here, you and me. We'll leave this place and be together." A younger Spike said eagerly to the blond beauty before him._

_"And go where?" She asked looking away from him._

_"Anywhere."__ He handed her a slip of paper. "Meet me there."_

_He had his doubts that she would come and when he watched as the torn pieces fall from her window, that's when he knew._

"You don't want to know? Cause I'm quite curious." Julia echoed from behind him. He whipped his head around and saw her painfully smiling at him. She ran a hand through her golden locks. He had almost forgotten that sad, but cynical side to Julia that he encountered when he first met her. Her verdant eyes never had a curious or enticing gleam. They would just stare deep into him and entwine him in this trance. Whenever she spoke like this, her expression would be spiteful and cold. Julia's lips had curled to a curious smirk and her eyes sparkled in a way he had never seen in his lover do.

"There's nothing to know. I don't love her." He stated frigidly. Julia's lavish eyes focused intensely on him.

"Then why does it bother you so much when you think about her? She's not me."

"She'll never be you." He exclaimed ruefully.

"Why do you fail to see how that's a good thing?" It had returned suddenly, that hurtful and remorseful stare. The green glow of her eyes changed into a deep artic blue. Julia turned around and headed outside of the hangar.

He shook his head as he buried his face in his hand. He chuckled slightly at the unsettling feeling she always gave him. Amidst attempting to organize his thoughts, he heard the roaring of the engine of the Hammerhead as it pulled into the hangar. Finally, maybe he would find some answers now.

"Any news?" Spike asked Jet as he jumped out of his cockpit.

"I found out about the woman, Natalie." Jet informed him. He proceeded to tell Spike that the timid blonde's name had actually been Erika Fullop, an undercover agent for ISSP.

"Undercover?" Spike asked. He didn't think that ISSP bothered doing operations like that anymore.

"Yeah, something about infiltrating a French syndicate criminal cell. Real ambitious this kid. They think she got made, but no one's bothered to make sure."

"Who would have thought? Natalie, an undercover cop." He paused shaking his head. "I don't get it all."

"If you scatter thorns, don't go barefoot." Jet sighed, the disappointment striking his features. "She was young, a good kid and idealistic. It happens. You think you can make a difference, change the system." Jet subconsciously rubbed his robotic arm as his dark eyes became opaque with remorse.

"No, not that. What I mean is that I don't get that even if she got made, why would she shoot herself in the chest?" Spike muttered. Jet glanced up at him, his eyes shifting down to the right, trying to recall anything else.

"They didn't find anything in her apartment, but the scene was a bit disturbing. She had scratches all over her chest. It seems she did it and then she shot herself."

"Nothing on Alyssa?"

"Nothing, she might as well be dead to the world." Jet grumbled. "Goddamn it. That woman is always getting into trouble, if she had just told us about the damn bounty."

"It wouldn't have a made a difference. I didn't remember who this man was until recently."

"Damn." Jet added in frustration. Spike started to walk outside of the hangar. "Where are you going?"

"The bar. There's something wrong about Natalie's death. There's something we're missing."

"I'm coming with you." Jet spoke decisively and walked up to his partner.

"I'd like to walk and think for a while."

"I'm not going to stop you," Jet replied nonchalantly and Spike glanced at the large man in surprise. Jet's eyes rolled to the side and noticed Spike's reaction. The ex-cop placed a hand behind his head and blushed slightly. Spike silently chuckled to himself and kept walking now with his comrade by his side. He could have assumed thousands of different theories of why Jet had reacted like that. Maybe he liked Faye, but Spike shook his head. No, it seemed pretty implausible. Faye was farther from Jet's taste in a woman as his bell peppers with beef were from having real meat. Spike was right before, Jet had simply grown attached to Faye in that odd way in which you get attached to an annoying song tune, and hum it every time you hear it. He remembered how nonchalant Jet had always tried to be about caring for Faye, Ed, and the critter. Spike, on the other hand, had never worried about Faye when she disappeared, but Jet always fussed about it even if it was just a little at first. However, this time everything had changed. Someone had specifically targeted her with every intention to do something just to spite him. He wouldn't let it. Faye would be fine. She would be just fine.

Spike stopped before entering the bar and glanced down the street. He thought of Natalie's strange death.

"It would be pointless now. They swept the apartment and had a cleanup team come and erase that fact that she was ever there. Bob agreed to send me some images from the scene by email," Jet told him as if reading Spike's mind.

They scouted out the small bar, the sleazy clientele, and finally sat down at the booth for a drink. As they chatted with people here and there throughout the night, it seemed that people knew little if anything about Natalie. They also encountered two men that remembered Alyssa thanks to their out-of-control hormones. They had only caught her name, because she always came with heavy muscle. Spike immediately recalled the two bodyguards at the door that time, standing vigilant of the young woman. The hours passed and they waited with the slight change that since they couldn't find Alyssa, she would come to them instead. Yet, nothing happened.

"It's almost sunrise. This is pointless," Spike muttered. He got up and left Jet sitting alone at the booth. The night breeze swept him as he exited the French bar. Violet traces of the sun had begun illuminating the dark gray sky. He popped a cigarette in his mouth and walked to the dead end between the buildings, the alley where Alyssa had kidnapped Faye.

_Faye's emerald eyes sparkled with defiance. She pointed the gun straight in front of her, aimed at Alyssa's head._

The dark alley was empty except for a black industrial dumpster at the corner of the building, probably the bar's. He glanced up in the direction she shot her gun.

_The projectile shot into the side of her neck. Faye turned around and fired her gun._ _Several shots flew at the corner of the building until another dart hit the back of her neck. _

He whipped around to glance at the back corner of the building next to the bar. Alyssa had planned this out with lots of care and time. Spike spit out his worn cigarette and climbed the emergency fire stairs to the rooftop of the building host to La Tour Eiffel. He walked to the front corner where he could picture a man standing here on top of this small two story building with a dart gun aimed at Faye.

_Where are you Faye? _

"Oi Spike!" Jet's voice echoed the cold streets. The sun's golden rays had started to peak in the horizon. Spike glanced down at Jet who stood glaring up at him. "What are you doing?"

"I don't know." Spike muttered and shrugged. He glanced back up towards the horizon. He slowly scanned down the long street until his heart suddenly skipped a beat. His eyes narrowed, his mechanical eye trying to focus closely on the figure walking in the direction of the bar. It was Faye Valentine.

"Jet!" Jet glance in the same direction and saw Faye's distant figure walking towards him. Spike immediately raced down the iron stairs, jumping from rest to rest until he made it down.

"Faye? Are you all right?" Jet asked as the figure came closer to them. Her emerald eyes glanced up at them in confusion.

"Yeah, I'm fine. What are you guys doing here?" She finally halted until she was a few feet away from both of them. Her head tilted upwards towards the rooftop. "The Red Tail.."

"Is at the Bebop." Jet finished for her. Spike stared at her closely. She seemed rancid and had a sallow complexion.

"Okay, fine." She turned around and Spike grabbed her by the arm.

"Are you sure you're okay?" He didn't mean to sound concerned, and he didn't. His voice had a pissed-off tone, not at the fact she seemed so careless about anything that had happened to her, but at Alyssa. That woman had been cowardly enough to use a medium to get to him.

"Yeah, I'm fine." She writhed her arm from his grip. "Let me go already." He hesitantly let her go and she began walking, but stopped suddenly as her balance wavered. She placed at hand against her face.

"Faye?" Jet called to her softly.

Faye's body jerked and Spike's eyes widened. His mechanical eye registered what he was seeing in slow motion. Faye's body fell forward, eternally falling and an image flashed thanks to his mechanical eye. Faye's violet hair transformed into golden locks flailing in the air and Julia's small fragile body swung forward.

The line between past and present dimmed and then disappeared. All that happened then, was happening again.

"Spike?" A voice echoed distantly.

The blonde beauty hit the ground and Spike swallowed hard. He blinked and when he opened his eyes again, he saw Jet holding Faye in his arms. He had caught her.

"Spike, what the fuck is wrong with you? We've got to get her help now. Her pulse is low." Jet uttered in a tone of urgency. Spike ran a hand through his messy dark hair and regained his composure. "Her complexion is a bit yellow, she may have been poisoned." Jet muttered and Spike only glared at him.

_Faye might be dying._


	9. Nine

Oh man, do you guys still love me: I know I'm horrible and haven't updated in forever and leaving it off at evil cliffie, but I've been out of the country and I was stuck in one part of the damn chapter and after several drafts I've finally come to something I'm satisfied with, so I hope it pleases you. Finally, we come to the climax and let's see where it takes us, shall we?

One thing, I did a tiny bit of research on the whole science bit, but I could hardly understand most of the research itself, so if anything seems like made-up science it most likely is.

Standard disclaimer applies. :) Hope you all like it. I'm sorry it's so long, but I couldn't cut it down for the life of me.

**Breaking Point**

---9---

"Tox screen is clean. White blood cell count a little above normal, but nothing to worry about." Celia muttered as she flustered over an unconscious Faye lying in the white bed inside a room in a small clinic. Spike had called Celia soon after he regained his senses. She was the first person he could think of and the one who had miraculously nursed him back to health. She had told him to meet him at the back of East Hill Clinic, a place where they attended the homeless and poor, meaning the criminals and loners who couldn't check in a hospital, for free or a price depending on who you were. Jet and Spike simply stared from a corner of the room, by the door. Machines, bottles, and other contraptions surrounded them and the room had an intimidating air. Spike started becoming more anxious by the minute and by every movement that Celia made.

"Pulse is a little erratic," she said as she detached a pad with a wire attached to it from Faye's chest. "I'm going to do an echo to see if we can find if there is something wrong with her heart. You say these needle marks on her neck were caused by darts?" She asked examining Faye's neck closely.

"Yeah," Spike replied while glaring at Faye intently, frightened by her limpness andher slight breathing.

"Well, she wasn't poisoned. It would have come up on the tox screen. They were probably tranquilizers. There's a lot of them nowadays that won't show up on a tox." She turned on a screen and grabbed several patches with cables attached to them connecting back to the small screen. Celia pasted three on Faye's back and three on her chest. The screen began showing a grid and then mapping out a live color picture of a heart. Celia observed the screen closely then tapped at it and the picture zoomed in. Spike couldn't quite understand what he was seeing, but he could have sworn that a light had flashed momentarily before Celia had zoomed in closer. He figured it could be something the machine would do, and it's not like he had seen a live beating heart in a screen before. The light flashed again and Celia's brow furrowed. She tapped the screen and it zoomed in again. A small dot flashed at a steady pace, slower than the heart, one flash each second.

"What the hell is that?" Jet uttered, before Spike could. Celia didn't respond, but instead focused closely on the screen. She pressed two buttons by the screen of the machine and the chamber walls became transparent allowing a patch of some kind of mechanical device to be visible.

"Oh my god." Celia's eyes widened. She turned to the two anxious men watching with perplexed expressions.

"What… is that?" Spike asked pointing at the screen. Celia rubbed her eyes and then glared somberly at both men.

"I—this," She stopped, her violet eyes momentarily rolling down to the right and then to the left, then focusing back at them. "I don't know what that is. It seems like a nanomachine hybrid of some sort, but I've never seen anything like it. It seems to have merged with her heart." She took in a deep breath and then stared Spike intensely in the eyes. He held his breath "Her pale complexion and the higher than normal white blood cell count might mean her body doesn't know what to think of this thing. So it's acting like it has an infection. It will probably clear up fast, but her body's reaction isn't what worries me. I said it might be a nanomachine, because this thing is attached to the chamber wall, as if it had always been there. It has integrated itself into the flesh."

"You're saying that this thing is actually part of her heart?" Spike asked not exactly comprehending what she was trying to tell them.

"This thing has merged with her heart tissue. But that's not the worse part, it seems like it's ticking. It's been my experience that something that ticks usually explodes." Celia muttered in a somewhat cynical tone.

"Are you saying there's a bomb inside her?" Jet gasped out.

"I'm saying I don't know." Celia glared at the screen again and fumbled with the image. "Could be wrong. I really don't know," she muttered low and to herself.

Spike's thoughts, expectations, worries, anything going through his mind collapsed. All it left him with was an empty cold feeling, an emotion that he had not felt since he first met Julia. Spike Spiegel was terrified.

"Spike?" Jet called his name, but all Spike could think was that he wanted to get out of there, for moment, just to breathe. He immediately walked off and went to a small door in a corner, which he found out led into a small storage area and a bathroom. He slipped a cigarette into his mouth and was about to light it when the door opened.

"If I were you I wouldn't smoke in here, you're surrounded by a lot of vicious chemicals," Celia stated as she entered the small room. It wasn't too small for comfort, it was probably the size of an economy flat bedroom, but nevertheless, the air still felt scant. "You want a shot to calm you down? It'll take effect in seconds," she said and he glared at her confused. She pointed at his hands and as he glanced down at them he noticed he was shaking.

"Nothing nicotine or alcohol won't solve," he replied placing his hands in his pockets.

"So that's the woman you were looking for." Her violet eyes observed him closely.

"Yeah."

"I'm not going to ask how this happened. That's not how I work. The less I know, the better I can sleep at night," she said looking away from him.

"She's in that bed because of me," he uttered because it was the one of the two coherent thoughts left in his mind.

"Now see, I don't think you heard me right."

"If I weren't alive none of this would have happened." That was the second one. Celia narrowed her eyes and shot a sharp irritated look at him. Spike talked as if only a conscienceless wall had been listening and Celia took a disagreeable notice of this.

"Light your cigarette," she uttered.

"What?" He glanced at her and realized his wall could talk back.

"Blow yourself up, if that's what you really want. Just 'cause I saved your life Spike, doesn't mean I'm your mother who will put up with your pussy ass whining."

Spike sighed, "And you seemed like a kind proper old lady."

"Oh Spike, Spike. When I found you lying like a corpse on the steps of that building, you were swallowed by more bruises and contusions than I could count and all bathed in your own blood and sweat. Your heart beat furiously to save you. At that moment, I didn't think about who you were and what you did, I just got to work. But in seven months, you hear a lot of things and have time for a lot of thinking. You see when I first saw you, I only thought one thing before I detached myself to keep you alive, you either wanted to die real badly—or you were a real stupidly brave man. Now, people talk and I've heard the sad tale of Spike Spiegel of love, friendship, betrayal, and revenge. And watching your numb body in that bed for seven months, I took pity on you. Because I knew you did it to die." Spike watched her as she paused to rub her neck as her eyes shifted down to the left reaching into buried memories in her mind. By now, he would have fallen asleep if anyone else had been telling his story. Instead, he listened attentively waiting for her to tell him what he had missed along the way, the true meaning of his life right then, right there.

"I knew I saved a man who wanted to die. But you see, there's a girl in there." She pointed towards Faye as if the wall separating the two rooms were invisible. "And she doesn't want the same things as you, no one I know does. So you have to put your obsession with death, your past, and yourself aside for once, so you can think about her life first. Then you can go back to dying."

"So in other words, get over it Spiegel?" She only patted him and shook her head. Spike glared at the woman, observed her gentle wrinkles and her sad smile. Pulling his weight off the wall, he took a step towards the door. Celia immediately grabbed his arm with a somber face.

"Call it a woman's intuition if you will, but she's in more trouble than you and I can imagine. I don't know what that thing is, but it's bad news." The worry lines contorted on her face. It didn't sound like paranoia or fear, but a wise fortune-teller showing him a glimpse of the near future.

"We better get going then."

Spike entered the round hallway of the Bebop. Jet followed close behind holding Faye in his arms. Spike had asked Celia for a gentle sedative for Faye so it would give them time to figure out what to do. As soon as they reached the lounge area, Jet headed straight for Faye's room. Spike stopped in the middle of the room and closed his eyes.

_Who? Who?_ Dozen of faces ran through his mind. _Who do I go to? What can I do? Who do I ask?_ The same faces cycled through his mind several times until they meshed into a blur and he couldn't think anymore.

_A bomb?__ A trick? A practical joke?_ No, Alyssa was being serious. The taste of revenge and spite lingered in the back of his throat.

_Who do I ask?_

He sighed and his body jerked to stop as he felt something tugging at the seams of his pants. His eyes flew open as he glanced down. A bush of red hair scurried around his left foot and on his right the familiar critter with the golden mane.

"Ed?" Jet's voice echoed as he walked back down the stairs. Ed's head propped up and her eyes glanced up at Jet. The lanky girl quickly dove towards Jet's direction and tackled the large man.

"Ed missed Jet-person a lot, and so did Ein." Ein hurried behind her and barked at Jet. Jet patted her red messy tresses and Ed let go allowing Jet to crouch down and pet the welsch corgi. Ed sprinted back to Spike hugging him at the hips.

"Poofy hair-person!" She shouted eagerly followed by another bark from Ein. Spike smiled, Ed had always annoyed him, but the hacker would be of good help now. If anyone could track down someone, it had to be Ed. He patted the hyperactive 10-year-old grateful for her sudden appearance. Ed immediately let go taken aback by Spike's friendly reaction.

"How come you're back Ed?" Jet asked as he walked towards the two tall and short lanky figures.

"Ed was more hungry and bored with Father-person than on the Bebop. Ed thinks father-person would like Ed more if Ed was a moon rock." She scowled like a cat and then continued. "Ed wasn't sure at first, but when Faye-Faye got in trouble, Ed knew."

Spike and Jet raised an eyebrow.

"Knew what?" Jet inquired curious at how the girl would respond. Ed smiled showing a wide set of bright white teeth.

"That Ed and Ein belong on the Bebop, because Bebop needs Ed."

"How did you know about Faye?"

"Ed is Ed, you know. Ed knows many things." She sing-sang happily.

_This kid can be so freaky,_ Spike thought to himself. "So the kid and critter are good for something," he added.

Jet placed his hands on the girl's shoulders and bent down to stare Ed at an even eye-level. "Ed, something very bad may have happened to Faye? Do you understand very bad?" Jet overt fatherly tone surprised Spike. His eyes focused gently on the girl as if trying to figure out her thoughts. Ed's eyes remained wide and her face almost drunkenly stoic. She nodded and her eyes widened as if suddenly realizing something.

"Ed almost forgot!" Her arms flailed in the air and she raced around Jet and dove behind the yellow couch. She jumped back up and expanded her arms on each side. Making playful airplane noises she raced back to Spike with a small box on her left hand. It was addressed to him.

"A lady-lady gave this to Ed to give to Spike."

"What lady, Ed? Where?" Spike glared at the child with somber eyes. She placed her index finger on her mouth as her irises rolled pensively to the side.

"With pretty curls, she came as Ed went into the Bebop," Ed added. Spike immediately focused on the small box with his name scribbled in the same handwriting as the note. He breathed in deeply and ripped the package open. After digging through some packaging popcorn he found a fortune cookie. _The goddamn bitch is playing with me._ Spike eyed the cookie as if it was a damned curse. He placed both hands at each tip about to pry it open, when Jet stopped him.

"Don't. Let's be sure first." He told him and grabbed the fortune cookie gently from him as if it were the bomb itself. He placed it in the amplifier, the small oven-like apparatus hooked to his computer which they used to analyze any small objects. Jet began typing on the computer as the oven scanned the small object. His eyes immediately widened. The welsch corgi eagerly barked at the screen. Spike glared at the screen seeing nothing in particular.

"I don't see anything." Spike muttered not understanding Jet's outlandish reaction.

"Noooo, look closer." Ed said pointing at the screen. Jet zoomed in and Spike's eyes narrowed. A blinking light emerged entrapped in small patch of silver roads and small mechanisms that seemed part of the cookie itself.

"The same kind of thing inside Faye." Jet uttered and then turned to Ed. "Ed, I need you to find who made this."

"Yessir, right away." She gave a salute and brought her computer, dubbed tomato, to hook up to Jet's machine. Her hands worked quickly and she placed her goggles on while waving her arms in her odd manner.

"Do you think it is the trigger or another bomb?" Jet asked Spike.

"I say we shoot it." Spike simply suggested with his gun already out and aimed at the small object inside the oven. Jet's eyes widened immediately taken aback by the black weapon and Spike's impulsive need to put a bullet through it.

"Don't be crazy! It could make the bomb inside Faye go off!" Jet pushed Spike's hand towards the floor, his right eye furiously twitching. Spike resigned himself to Jet's decision and put his weapon away.

"What bomb?" Faye asked standing at the top of the stairs. Spike glared at her worn face, apparently the sedative had been a little too gentle for Faye. He thought it would buy them more time than it had. She walked down, her emerald eyes fixated on the two men. Ed suddenly propped up and ran to the pale woman almost tackling her. Faye grimaced and resumed her questioning. "I said, what bomb?" Ed shrunk back and placed her goggles on and waved her arms in the air as she surfed through the Solar System network.

"We don't know what it is. It could be anything, it's just that..." Jet started but Faye immediately stopped him.

"There's something inside me?" Her eyes narrowed. "What? I want to know. What!" She had walked up to Jet and then glared at the screen. "Is that what it looks like?"

Spike couldn't find his or even a thought to answer her. She glanced at both men perplexedly.

"Why aren't you two answering me? That bitch put something inside me, didn't she? Why the fuck me? I'm too fricken young to die. I'm going to find her and slam her down. Goddamn it, that stupid…" She would have probably kept on going if Spike hadn't suddenly placed his hands on her shoulders. He glared into her emerald eyes intensely. He wanted her to calm down and to understand that he never meant for this to happen. "What are you doing Spike?" She asked half-frightened.

"Stop, just sit down. Ed's back. She'll help us find out what it is. Nothing is going to happen to you." He spoke softer than he had meant to. Now, self-conscious of his actions, he let go of Faye immediately. Her expression had now evolved beyond anger, but a state of utter befuddlement. She sat down, her eyes frozen and numb. "What do you remember?"

She gazed at him with a curious and distrustful expression, but she finally decided to speak.

"I was in the bar, she came up to me with a ridiculous offer, and I knew she was bluffing. So I followed her outside, just to see what she was up to and the damn bitch had two men waiting for me." She rubbed the back of her neck. "Then everything's blank." Her voice quivered. Spike recalled that look in her eyes, the same one she sported that day they found that video of her childhood. It was a black hole that swallowed her entire memory and made everything so incomprehensible. "I woke up in an alley way. What else was I going to do, but search for my ship and get the hell out of there?"

Nothing she said helped him figure out where to find the French woman. He turned to Jet. "Where did you say Henri Reve was buried?"

"I didn't." Jet typed into his computer. "I'll be damned. He was buried at the cemetery behind the old Cathedral."

Spike nodded heading for the workshop. He grabbed two more guns and couple of grenades. He didn't think he would be using them, but you could never be too cautious. He felt certain she wanted him alive and with every minute that passed, the ominous feeling in the pit of his stomach grew even more.

"Where are you going?" Faye asked him as he headed towards the hangar.

"To meet an old acquaintance," he murmured avoiding looking at Faye directly.

"Spike," Faye paused, "Why are you so interested? What the hell does she want with me?"

He had a few options. He could give her the note and let her come to her own conclusion. He could tell her about Alyssa and her personal vendetta against him, but he hadn't the time to explain to her anything.

"That's what I'm going to find out." Spike Spiegel walked away and he anticipated her screaming demands for answer. None came.

The Swordfish sifted through the red fog and dove into the mass of clouds that caped the crater which cradled the city of Tharsis. Piercing through the mist, the dark city lay there untouched and unchanged since he had last been there. The monoracer zoomed above the building tops and finally came to a steady landing in an old lot by the cathedral. He strolled down the street and turned down the hill just behind the old church. His hand reached for the iron gate and felt crumbs of rust in his hand. He passed through the same paved walkway he had when he had met Julia. A shiver ran through him, almost sensing the presence of the past still suspended in the air of the gravesite.

_"Is this a dream?" Her blue eyes stared with desperate blankness in them._

_"Yes, it's all just a bad dream."_

He scanned each gravestone until he came across a white sisol straw hat with a black dramatic bow on one side huddling a mass of black curls. Alyssa sat calmly on a bench in front of her father's grave with her hand—shielded by a short white glove—holding her merry widow hat from the soft wind. On her left hand, she held a single white rose rested on her tight-fitted white dress. A chalky taste of irony and disturbance lingered on his tongue. At only twenty years of age, Alyssa was a beautiful woman, someone Spike would have probably approached. Her aura wasn't that of a crazy and emotionally broken girl, but of an extravagant yet delicate person, an ordinary woman just like anyone else.

His lanky body fell lazily by her side and he immediately spotted the side of her lips curling into a smile.

"This place is deeply connected to both of us. Ironic, isn't it?" Her voice had a hint of amusement. Spike responded with a hard and serious glare her way. He deliberately shut off his emotions. The situation left him with no choice but to play it hard. The cold calculated look of this young girl frightened him.

"What did you do to her?" His voice rang monotonously.

"Ah yes." She paused letting her right hand fall to her hair to pull a few tresses behind one ear. "We'll talk about that soon enough."

Spike pulled out his gun and placed it on his lap aimed at Alyssa. She smirked and glanced around her.

"Now-now darling, put that away. We both know you won't kill me."

"Yet."

"Touché." She cocked her head to the side while staring at him with a deviant smile. "But until then, you need me don't you?"

"I don't care." His voice remained calm and his demeanor locked in a composed mode.

"Oh, but I think you do." She tilted her head to the other side and narrowed her stare. Her dark eyes had only more void behind them. "Let me tell you a story Spike. There was once a man who had daughter. He was all she had in this world. But you see, this man was a little too smart, so smart that evil people wanted his knowledge for their advantage. The man heard of this and tried to send his daughter away, but she wanted to protect him so badly that she stayed behind. One night, dark men invaded the house." She paused as her eyes grew opaque and resentful. Spike scoffed internally. The way she spoke made her sound like a little girl, _a goddamn vengeful brat_.

"The little girl hid behind the closet door and watched as this man threatened to hurt her father. She was so scared. She wanted to scream, but had no voice to do so. So he pointed the gun…" _The man paused and then glanced up at Spike, his radiant dark eyes staring ferociously at him. Spike cocked the gun and pulled the trigger._ "And shot her father who had been praying on his knees." Her eyes watered slightly, but she held the emotions back. She was a vengeful brat all right, who was probably a good student and a good daughter, until Spike killed her father.

"That was long and boring." He kept himself detached. "What the fuck do you want with me?" She smiled gallantly, the tears ebbing back to the back of her mind.

"Oh Spike, I'm hurt. It's not about wants. It's about vengeance, it always is. Julia—lovely woman—I'm sure at some point you thought you deserved to be happy with her, but then she died because revenge came first in your mind." Spike's hand formed into a fist at the sound of her name being spoken. "You simply had to go and kill off your best friend. She died because of your lust for revenge. All that drama and death, that sure as hell sounds like karma to me. But then I found out you were going to die, so I went looking for you. And there you were lying like a pathetic loveless man, and right then I decided to pump a little something to keep your heart going and tipped off good ol' Samaritan Celia." She said this last sentence with quick head dip to the side and a squint in her eyes. "But you wouldn't give up with your obsession with death. I thought you had given up, and I couldn't have that. I needed you to want to live in order for you to suffer."

"You saved me." Spike churned internally with disgust. "You paid off that man to threaten Faye."

"It's all coming together now, isn't it? The best part was watching you both dancing. I knew then she had sparked something in you and so soon too! I was willing to wait as long as it was needed. I really thought it would be harder than this." She laughed a soft and pretentious kind of laugh, childishly tilting her head back a bit. She was mocking him with her stupid white hat and snobby demeanor. In her mind, she was god and he was a pawn in her world to which punishment was duly deserved.

Her uppity chuckle struck his last nerve and the composure locked inside him undulated and burst. "You had no right…"

"To save you? Why? Cause you've suffered enough?" Her smile shifted to a fierce glare. "No Spike, that was all divine retribution ordained by God. This is my own and hell, it's not my fault that you facilitated it so nicely." She stood up and looked to the grayish sky.

"Is it a bomb?"

"Faye tells it when to go off. She's the spark, which is fitting don't you think?" She turned to him with that mischievous smirk again, as if she couldn't comprehend that this wasn't just some prank, she was toying with someone's life.

"What the hell does that mean?"

"You have to choose between thenine million people residing in Alba or her." He scoffed. _The city?__ She wants to blow up the city?_

"You're a sick fuck, you know that?"

"I'm sick? You killed, murdered, so many people, a lot of them innocent people and called it 'making a living!' You're the sick one!" Her cheeks were flustered with anger, but she breathed in composing herself back to her cool demeanor and adjusting her hat. She dropped the rose by the gravestone and began to walk away. Spike propelled his body up pointing the gun behind her head.

"Wait. I don't get any of the damn crap you just spouted." Spike menaced.

"I'm not bluffing Spike. Time's ticking. I will contact you again." She responded in a robotic tone without turning around.

"Like hell you will." She stopped, still not glancing back at him.

"What are you going to do? Shoot me? We're playing by my rules Spike. So typical of you, always acting before you think."

"You don't know shit about me." He still menaced with the gun.

"See you later, Space Cowboy." Her heels began clicking against the cement once again.

He watched her small figure sink into the distance. His finger was at the trigger ready to shoot, but he couldn't. She was right. The woman could be crazy enough to pull this off and if he killed her now, he might kill Faye or the whole city for all he knew.

_But what had she really meant when she said he had to choose betweennine million people and Faye?_

Exasperated, he shook his head at the situation and in the corner of his eyes he caught a glimpse of a small black object lying on the bench. His hand hesitantly reached for it. His heart started pounding. He glanced towards where Alyssa's figure had gone. Spike Spiegel swallowed hard.

Maybehe should have takenhis chances and shot her after all.

His eyes fell ruefully on the small object in his hand, a small digital watch. The time on it counted down by seconds.

_59:58:16_

_59:58:15…_


	10. 59:58:14

**Breaking Point**

---59:58:14---

It had been so long ago and yet, his wound ached fresh and sour.

_She laid there, so soft and weightless in his arms. Spike held his broken porcelain doll so tightly as her silky golden locks cascaded all around her. When her eyelids fluttered open, he held his breath in a pang of hope. Then he saw it. The pain rippled in her vast blue irises. The cold soothing pain numbed her aching soul. She wanted this so badly._

_And in the end, he wanted the same fate for himself._

_Her last words slithered out her pale lips and all he could do was reassure her that it would all end soon. It did the moment her eyes closed shut. Thin tears escaped him. They burned down his cheeks filled with sorrow and hate, so he gripped her tighter as he trembled against her limp corpse. _

_"I'm sorry." He murmured. "I never wanted to kill you."_

About a year ago he had gone to meet his destiny, as he thought it, and finally he would end this dream that had turned into a nightmare. Nevertheless, destiny never turns out to be as we want it. If so, then Julia's death wouldn't have occurred and his own would have been inconsequential. Who's he to understand destiny anyhow? He's a man, victim of his own delusions and tragedies. To his misfortune though, this time destiny had a name. Her name was Alyssa.

In his mind, he could not grant her that much credit. There was no trap to fall in, just the fact that he—like many times before—had lost track of his dream and this time someone had taken over for him, but this would not last for long.

By no chance did this mean that he felt secure that he could stop whatever her disturbed mind had planned. His cynical reaction had merely been due to the shock of everything that had evolved until now. Spike Spiegel's hands trembled as they handled the controls of the Swordfish II, racing through Alba's skyline and finally arriving to the docks. His pulse raced with the little digital watch on his wrist hiding behind the long black sleeve of his jacket.

_Faye tells it when to go off. She's the spark, which is fitting don't you think?_

He spotted the Bebop and after almost forty minutes of absolute anxiety, coherent thoughts of his own began to form in his mind. _What am I going to tell her?_ _What am I going to do?_

_Julia._

_Julia!_

_Julia, I'm going to kill someone else._

Spike landed without noticing her at first, but as soon as he was out of his cockpit he spotted her small figure on the deck. He approached her hesitantly watching her svelte body glaze the hazy image of the bay surrounding them. She stood on the edge, sipping the smoke of her cigarette. His feet stopped at a small distance before reaching her. Her emerald eyes seemed focused on the sparkling blue of the water as her violet locks swayed with the wind and her pale skin glowed white like porcelain under the sun's rays.

_No Spike_, his mind questioned her seeming fragility. He knew better than to judge someone by their appearance. From far away, perhaps the hazy atmospheric portrait of this Romany could impair his judgment. All he had to do was to get closer, two feet, one foot and there. He glanced closely at her and into her verdant glare, and he saw the truth. Faye's eyes were hardly numb. They were resolute, full of emotion and power. Her right arm clung tightly to her body beneath her chest while the other held up the hand that brought the cigarette to her lips. He knew she could easily see how closely he watched her, but it didn't stir her. Instead she remained stubbornly focused on the bay, the blue waters, the sky and city cradled in this crater.

_…nine million people or her…_

Faye Valentine was looking at her fate without realizing it.

He stared at the city along with her for a moment. They both stood there listening to the wind and the distant sounds of traffic. His eyes shifted to the side when he heard her take in a deep breath.

"I lived by the ocean when I was little. I would sit by this large fountain after school, take pictures and make sketches—and I made this collage for a project once. I used to love the sea, so untamed and vast. Full of endless opportunities." Her eyes narrowed. "Now I realize that what I'm actually looking at is fake and imprisoned inside this crater." She puffed out a smoky chuckle and then proceeded to take another drag. He breathed in deeply, letting her smoke fill his lungs. Turning his face, he glanced down at the digital watch and then silently released the captive air inside him.

Faye licked her lips and spoke with the cigarette dangling in her fingers, almost out. "Jet won't tell me why. I keep asking myself what this woman wants with me and I know he knows. I know you know." Her face whipped to the side to face him. "Why won't any of you tell me? What the hell is going on? Who is she? Jet just looked at me with that stupid puppy blank face of his and then told me he was too busy trying to figure it out. So that leaves you. Tell me." Her tone had ranged from angry to monotonous. "What did you find?"

"Nothing," he responded quietly and indifferently. Faye took her last drag and let her cigarette fall to the ground. Her foot smeared the remnants of the tobacco stick against the metal floor of the Bebop. She glanced back at the sea for a few seconds, and then back at Spike. Her emerald eyes were filled with disgust.

"Go to hell," she uttered cynically and turned back to the sea. "Is that all then?" She asked crossing her arms.

"Where's Jet?" Upon arriving, he had also noticed that the Hammerhead was missing.

"I don't know, avoiding me like you? He said something about meeting someone, Bob-who knows." Faye responded without glancing back at him. His eyes fixed on her for a couple of more seconds and then he turned around to head back into the ship. He was sorry. He was sorry for letting Alyssa near her and for letting her watch him on his quest to die. He genuinely was sorry that he had ever hurt her—that he had ever made her cry. Seeing her in tears that day from afar had stirred something so strong in him that he thought it would shatter him in half. He was sorry, but there was no urge in him to apologize. There was nothing to apologize about, he rationalized. Apologies are always so selfish. They are often done not out of courtesy or appreciation for the person, but out of your own need to feel less pain. A thousand apologies would never redeem Spike Spiegel.

"You're looking for redemption?" Her voice emerged the minute he entered the dark hangar.

"No." He glanced towards his blonde ghost leaning against his ship.

"To God I commend my soul. Lord, save my soul," she whispered and then faded.

Spike choked on his breath as he let it out. He was going to explode and he didn't know why. Putting Faye in danger, coming back from the dead, seeing Julia constantly, it was all driving him insane. His brows furrowed and his face crumpled in a pang of remorse he couldn't understand. On the inside, his heart pushed against his chest. The guilt pushed against his chest and he couldn't breathe anymore. The sound of the roaring of the Hammerhead droned out his gasps. He shut his eyes closed and drew his hands in fists. He needed to find some control in himself. They would not win—no—he had more strength than his emotions could ever bear.

"Hey Spike, you all right?" Jet's deep voice called from behind him. Spike's body relaxed. He breathed in deeply and then turned around.

"Just fine. Where'd you go?"

"To meet Bob." Jet muttered with an uncomfortable expression. He walked inside the Bebop with Spike following close behind.

"So, did you find out anything?" Jet drilled him back as they emerged into the lounge area.

"Nothing." Spike responded finding it better to keep quiet until he figured out what the hell had just happened with Alyssa. "What about Bob?" He glanced at the brown envelope Jet was holding.

Jet's eyes shifted towards Ed, who dangled her arms in front of her. Ein rested next to her, watching the odd movements of its favorite companion. Jet then glanced down at the envelope and held it up to Spike with a grave gleam in his dark eyes. Spike took the package and stared at his friend.

"Prints from the autopsy." Jet murmured in a low voice, hesitant with a sense of wariness in his voice. Spike held his breath. He opened the envelope immediately and pulled out a thin stack of eight by tens.

He remembered her that night, full red lips, bright eyes and smiling. The images he had in his hand barely resembled the French girl. Natalie's lips were black, her hair a hay tone of yellow—and her skin was the worst part. The picture showed her bare chest, with a bullet hole straight into the heart. That part hadn't surprised him. It was the ragged marks of torn flesh surrounding her chest. They seemed like nail marks.

"What the hell…" Spike's reaction escaped him as he thumbed through the five pictures in his hands. "What happened to her?" He glanced up at his partner.

"She did it to herself. They found remnants of her own tissue under her nails." Jet sat down, eyes staring off to the distance. "They don't know why she killed herself. It was a risky mission, but not—they think she went nuts. There's nothing to tell them otherwise."

Spike grimaced and put the pictures down. He was disgusted to look at them, to touch them, to even think about it. Deep in him, his instincts tugged and screamed that somehow Alyssa had something to do with Natalie's death.

"Oi Ed, have you found anything?" Jet asked apparently wanting to forget the pictures as much as Spike did.

Ed growled in response. "Ed busy. Can't talk." The flamboyant girl now stood eerily still. Ein immediately propped himself up on his four paws and glared at the screen. Spike glanced at Jet, who simply shrugged his shoulders. Maybe, just maybe, she had found something.

"Julia." Ed muttered.

Spike's breathing had momentarily stopped. For that name the world around him always seemed to come to a halt. Everything dies all over again with that name. He glanced to his side feeling the heavy stare of his comrade. It had not been a fluke. He could read it in the man's face. Jet's eyes expressed a sense of worry and even fear. The poor man had probably flinched at the sound of her name.

"What?" Spike finally spoke up shaking his head. His heart beat at a staggered rhythm.

"Ed is buuusy. No talk, Spike-person." She murmured and kept still.

"Damn it Ed! Why did you say that name?"

"Name?" Ed glanced towards Spike with her goggles still on. "That's what it says on here." Ed pointed at the screen. Jet neared Ed while Spike sprinted to Ed. He scanned her screen over and over again and could not see it.

"Where?"

Ed sighed. "Makers of the wieeerd chippu-chippu."

"The what?"

"The microchip on the cookie." Jet clarified for Spike.

"Johnson & Ubert Liason, Incorporated Association." Ed continued. "J-U-L-I-A."

"Cute." Spike shook his head again. He felt like throwing up.

"Who's the head, chairman, whatever?" Jet asked the young girl.

"Mmmm, Edith Iafe."

"Iafe?" Jet scratched his head.

"Edith P. Iafe."

"Edith Piaf, as in the singer?" The middle-aged man's brows furrowed.

"Wrong." Ed buzzed and started typing on her tomato. Spike's mind hit a nerve that shocked the rest of his body.

"La vie en rose. Her father's favorite song…" Spike felt like he was in wonderland, stuck in some twisted writer's world for a child.

"Sang by Edith Piaf." Jet finished for him. "It's her."

"That bitch. It's a dummy corporation." Spike seeped in anger. First Faye and now Julia. She loved fucking with him. She knew him too well. Alyssa hadabsorbed herself in his entire life to just fucking torture him. He hated people like that.

"She's obsessed with you." Jet spoke somberly. A low pitch of anger echoed in his voice. "She's alive for you. To take revenge on you." Spike shifted his eyes to the side, not wanting to stare at Jet directly. He could sense the animosity directed at him. "She's going to die." His tone changed on that last phrase. It had fear and spite in his words. Faye was going to die is what he had meant.

"Ed will look faster." The young girl's voice was barely audible. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard still as a statue. "It's a promise!" Ed shouted candidly, her face fixed on the screen and then she continued typing. Jet's eyebrows arched, and then curved back down in a grimace.

"I won't let anything happen to Faye." Spike stated, trying to calm his comrade and trying to do the same for himself.

"It's too late for that now." Jet's face remained stern. Spike opened his mouth to respond, not really knowing what he would say before saying it like usual, but the bellow of the Red Tails engine echoed down the hall. _Damnit_ Spike's heart sped up and Jet glared at him for a moment. _She's running away,_ his dark eyes told him.

"I'll stop her." Spike told him and raced to the hangar. By the time he reached it, the Red Tail had already zoomed to the bay. Spike jumped into the cockpit of the Swordfish II determined to follow her and bring her back. There was no time for her runaway stunts. This was not a time to act like a neglected teenager. She needed to be here. He needed her here.

His controls came online and his cockpit lid shut close. As soon as he was in the air, he turned on his communicator link screen and before he could dial for Faye, Jet's face appeared on the channel.

"Faye, don't be stupid and run away on us now. We need you here if we're going to stop this." Jet's lips were pursed into a reproaching frown, but his eyes seemed to almost beg. He was begging her to stop and come home.

"No Jet. Not this time." Faye's pale face appeared alongside Jet's on the comm. link's three way channel.

"Where are you going anyhow?" He sounded annoyed and hurt at the same time.

"Somewhere. To find her myself. It doesn't matter." Her eyes never stared directly at the screen. Some odd emotion flashed in her emerald stare that Spike couldn't pin point and it alarmed him. Spike glanced down at the digital watch on his wrist. This was no good at all.

"Faye!" Jet shouted, his eyes now narrowed with guarding anger.

"Faye," Spike interrupted pushing on his broadcast button. "We don't have time for this. Don't you understand?"

"Go to hell Spike." She glared at him with piercing eyes. He snapped.

"Damn it woman! We have les then 60 hours to figure this shit out and you're not goddamn helping. So just get the hell back here so we can sort this out once and for all."

_Shit._

"What?" Her eyes were wide.

"How do you know that Spike?" Jet didn't ask. He demanded to know.

"I met with her all right? She left me a watch and it's counting down by the seconds." God, he hated his damn mouth.

"It's a bomb." Faye muttered as her eyes became devoid of emotion.

"So get back, and we'll figure it out." His reply was a simple flashing screen signaling an incoming message. "The fuck?" He muttered clicking to accept it.

…follow the Yellow Brick road

where the Oaks and Elms grow

where the grass is green and

the world is clean

in a merry-go-round we'll go

if you follow the innocent glow.

"What the fuck is this?" Faye's voice boomed through the audio channel.

"I got it too." Jet simply added.

Spike stared at the words. It was from her, another one of her little games. He read the poem again, slow the second time then fast the third time. He picked the words apart one by one and examined them separately. Then it dawned on him.

_Follow, _

_Yellow Brick_

_Oaks_

_Elms_

_Go, go, follow_

Yellow Brick.

"It's an address. Yellow Brick Avenue and Elm, northeast Alba." Spike muttered.

"I'm on it." Faye stated and then cut off her link to the channel.

"No, Faye—Hold on. Damn it!" There was nothing he could do. He had no time to fight her, just to follow the stupid charade because Alyssa was in control. It was her show, her game, her play, and there was nothing he could do.

"Jet, we need information. I'll go after her." There was no response, instead a simple click and then a low hum. He took that as a yes. He increased his speed and turned to the right to head northeast of the city. His eyes narrowed at Alba's skyline. Like hell he was going to let anyone take another woman away from him. Not this time, not ever. If he was alive, he was going to make someone pay for it.

His finger tingled from anxiety, nervousness, or who knows. He had no idea what to expect, but there was no time to think about it. _Not now, Spiegel._ He didn't know what the hell to expect once they reached that intersection. Dead bodies, a bomb, Alyssa, to meet his maker? God, that's all he had wanted to begin with, to meet his goddamn maker and ask him if he got off watching people like him fuck up everything in his life?

He held his breath spotting the Red Tail straight ahead about to land on the rooftop of a building near the intersection the poem had instructed. By the time he had landed his ship on an adjacent open lot, Faye was already out of her ship and heading in to the building. He managed to run down the lot's stairs and barely catch up to her as she headed down Elm street towards Yellow Brick avenue.

"Wait up!" He ran up to her grabbing her shoulder. "You can't just run to it like that, we don't know what the hell she's planning." That stupid woman never thought did she? She immediately turned around and pried his hand off her.

"Oh yeah? Sounds like something you would do." Her eyes burned with annoyance. "Tell me something Spike, how the fuck do you know her? Is she an old girlfriend, another Julia?"

"Don't do this now Faye." He had no answer. He had nothing at all to tell her.

"Yeah?" She pushed her index finger against his chest. "Well, fuck you too." She turned on her heel and kept walking forward to the intersection of Yellow Brick and Elm. He resigned to letting her walk ahead of him. He figured he could probably watch her back this way. As they both headed north on the right side of the street, Spike scanned his surroundings. His eyes widened as he spotted someone walking down the street. In sheer puzzlement, he sped up to meet Celia nearing the same intersection from the opposite direction.

"Celia?" Spike called to her and stopped right at the corner of Yellow Brick and Elm. The old woman waved and waited for the signal to cross the street.

"Who is that?" Faye asked. She had followed after him.

"Celia, she's a nurse and a friend. She helped us when we found you." He glanced over his shoulder to her. She simply glared at him suspiciously then back at her.

"Well, it's good to know I'm not the only one running late." Celia said after having crossed the street to meet them. "Nice to see you awake, Faye." The old woman smiled and Faye simply nodded back, her attempt at polite gratitude.

Spike shook his head. "Running late, for what?" He had no idea what she had meant.

"To meet? You okay, kid? And I thought I was the old one." She smirked.

"To meet with you?"

"Yeah, you sent me this thing." She pulled out a piece of paper from a worn black purse, "told me to look at it and meet you." She smiled nervously. Spike guessed she was starting to realize that he knew nothing about any of what she had just said.

"Here?" Spike asked, his brows furrowing with suspicion and worry.

"No." Celia's voice turned somber and her eyes deepened with anxiety. "Next block over. Yellow Brick and 12th."

He glanced over at Faye, who simply stared with an enraged and confused look. Something was very wrong. He dialed Jet's on his portable comm. unit.

"Yeah? What happened?" Jet asked.

"Jet what did the poem say again?"

"Uh," He fumbled around and then grabbed a piece of paper. "Yeah, it's '…follow the Yellow Brick road, where the Oaks and Elms grow, where the grass is green and the world is clean; in a merry-go-round we'll go if you follow the innocent glow.'"

"Oaks and elms? Merry-go-round? What the hell?"

"You there yet?" Jet asked.

"When were you supposed to meet?" Faye asked Celia.

"At 2:00, it's a minute 'till." She responded glancing down at her silver watch on her pale wrist. Spike glared at Celia then at Faye and then down Yellow Brick. He started walking towards it. Something in his gut screamed at him that this whole charade was about to get worse and fast. He began to walk down the avenue towards the corner where Celia had mentioned.

"Jet, what's on the corner of Brick and 12th? A merry-go-round?" His voice trailed behind him and into his communicator. Celia gasped and he turned around immediately. Her violet eyes were wide. "Celia?"

"A school. Oak Head Start School, their insignia…" He started running before letting her finish.

"Spike! Stop!" He heard Faye's voice closer than he expected to, but he only ran faster.

"Oi Spike!" His communicator rang. He had forgotten Jet was still on the channel. "The chip on the cookie is doing something odd. The light is blinking faster." Spike's heart skipped a beat. He immediately whipped his body around and faced Faye. Faye simply glared at him with confusion.

"Spike, what the hell is it with you lunkhead?"

After that, it all happened so fast. That question is the last thing he recalls clearly. Everything after became such a blur. The explosion rang behind him in a powerful wave that hit him forcing him down. He reached for Faye who had kneeled and covered her ears with her hands while flinching in fear. His eyes scanned farther for Celia, who stood not so far from them wide-eyed and mouth agape. He grabbed Faye by the shoulders and helped her stand up. His ears were pounding. He couldn't hear anything but a loud screeching hum.

"You all right?" He thought he said. Faye nodded and then pointed behind him. He didn't need to turn around. He could already see the haze in the air, taste and smell the smoke spreading like locusts. When he turned around, he could see the cloud of black smoke emerging from a building a few meters away. He could now hear distant sounds of sirens and fire alarms.

He ran or he thought he did. As he whipped around the corner, he saw the front of the school, the bare bones of a small school bus on fire. The sign atop the entrance was black, and only the O from Oak was intact. Next to the O, he saw a small half-shattered carousel insignia. His heart raced and he heard everything inside him scream. The screams became cries and the cries became choked out sobs. He turned his head to the side, and realized it hadn't been his heart screaming. A woman a few feet away stood in front of the school, a red gash on the side of her head, wailing in despair.

"No! Someone, my baby! Danny! Oh God!" She yelled and choked, and yelled again. That's when he saw Celia's figure run to her.

"Come on now, it's okay, I'm a nurse. You're okay." Celia cooed while pressing a hand to the woman's head.

"Help… please someone." His attention turned to a woman who walked out through the smoke filled building, cradling her bloody right arm and tears streaming from her eyes. "The children, someone!"

Spike wanted to run to her. He glanced down at his legs. _Move!_ This had nothing to do with him. It hadn't anything to do with him. It wasn't his fault this happened. He had no way of knowing that she was capable of this. That monster, it was that monster's fault. He had nothing to do with this.

"Oh my god." He heard Faye's soft whisper. She stood paralyzed next to him as she witnessed the black remnants of the explosion.

People started rushing out of the building. Mostly children, some had black faces and seemed unhurt, while others had gashes here and there. This one woman came out, fear and shock embedded in her eyes, holding a limp child in her arms.

"I'm a nurse!" Celia ran to her and examined the child.

_There was nothing I could do._

"Spike…" He heard the soft murmur from behind him as a cold feeling gripped his right shoulder. Slowly rotating his head back, he saw Julia's image momentarily flash in an alleyway not too far from the scene. Past the spectators, past the smoke, he saw her. Anger burned as he narrowed his eyes. Something sparkled in the light of the fire. A single tear fell down Alyssa's numb face. She turned her back on the scene and the black hair flowed behind her as she disappeared into the alley.

His feet sprinted towards her. Towards the goddamn bitch, she had just set children to flames and for what? He reached the alleyway and found nothing there.

"Shit!" He shouted punching the concrete wall of the building. His nerves threatened to overflow and stain the black ground.

_It's a bomb, Spike. What else could it be?_

_A goddamn bomb._

_Inside Faye._

_Ticking._

Spike stared at the ceiling, frantically smoking his cigarette. Jet sat across from him, smoking his stick too. They would occasionally make eye contact and then awkwardly break it again. Jet would look to the side and Spike back up to the ceiling. Faye's gagging sounds echoed in the silence pervading throughout the Bebop.

"I should check up on them." Spike suddenly said standing up. His cigarette was nearly out and that would leave him with nothing to do or focus his attention on. He didn't want to think about what had just transgressed in the past half-hour. After the cops and medics arrived they had kicked them all out, including Celia, who reluctantly left the scene. A paramedic woman asked them if they were all right. Celia's shirt was bloody, Faye had a stunned look on his face, and Spike's knuckles were bleeding. It must have not been a reassuring sight. Celia nodded for all of them. She told the woman she would make sure they would get checked up, but to focus on the children for now.

Now they were all back at the Bebop. Jet hadn't said anything when he heard what happened, he had seen it on the news already. Spike had given Ed the paper Alyssa sent Celia and she went off to study it in the circular hallway. Spike resigned to the kid doing her thing, since he was already preoccupied with Alyssa trying to blow up the world. Blow up Faye. Stepping closer to the bathroom, he heard the water running and then the squeaking of the faucet turning to shut off.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. I just hadn't had anything decent to eat—there never is in this goddamn ship—and then seeing—Jesus." Faye's voice drummed through the metal walls.

"Yeah?" Celia asked complacently.

"I'm gonna die, aren't I? That was a warning, don't you think? God, I don't even know you and putting you in some shitty spot…" Faye was barely coherent.

"That's fine."

Spike placed his hands on his face and breathed in deep. He stepped away from the bathroom door towards the lounge area. A child's face muddied by the smoke flashed in his right eye. He choked a breath and pulled out another cigarette. He lit his nicotine savior and brought it to his lips. _Just don't think about it Spiegel. _Celia had ridden in Faye's ship somehow, probably solely to avoid him. He didn't blame them at all. If he could avoid himself, he would.

He plopped down on the hard yellow couch while inhaling the miraculously healing smoke. Jet stared at him from across and then his gaze shifted to the side towards the women emerging into the room. Jet stood up and offered his chair to Celia. She declined, but Faye took it. Her face was pale and her hairline moist, probably from dipping her face into some cold water for relief.

"How many were there total?" Celia was the first to speak up. She addressed her question to Jet.

"Two dead. The driver of the bus who was just getting on and one of the administrators who had gone up to give the driver something when the bomb exploded. There's twenty-three injured. Fourteen of them children, a few passer-bys and some teachers. Two critical, both children, but should recover fine. Cause for the bombing, they say," He finally took his first long pause. "Terrorism. An act of terrorism."

Celia glanced over at Spike. Her violet eyes seemed insistent that he say something, anything at all. There was nothing to say. What could he say under the circumstances anyway?

"And the chip?" Spike asked Jet. Celia's gaze fell to the ground, obviously not the comment she had expected from him.

"The damn thing blinked red several times, then nothing for like a second and then—it just disintegrated. The thing inside the cookie turned into—I don't know and then nothing." The old man's face had the most puzzled look that Spike had ever seen his comrade have. At least, he hadn't witnessed what they had, which had been so much worse. The room fell silent again and Celia seemed to have given up on Spike saying anything at all.

All of the sudden a beeping noise rang through the silence. They had an incoming call from within the city, but the location was unknown. Jet bent down to the computer sitting on the center table and clicked to accept the call.

Alyssa's cold face appeared on the screen.

"You motherfucking bitch!" Faye ran behind the yellow couch and yelled out towards the screen. "You actually have the gall to fricken call now? What the fuck do you want from me?"

Alyssa's stoic expression remained unaltered by Faye's outburst. She simply narrowed her dark eyes at Spike.

"I see that you now understand how extremely serious I am, Spike."

"What do you want?" he asked, his expression hard as stone.

"This call is simply out of courtesy. I don't have to do this, since I'm sure your pet comrade—Ed is her name right?—should be figuring out the paper I sent to our dear Celia. Since, I'm almost sure by Faye's outburst that you haven't told them a thing, I shall now do the honors of reminding you what I told you."

"You fucken bitch. I didn't understand a word you said." Spike had risen up as if to strike the screen, but simply stood there with his fist inert by his side.

"Not surprising of a simple mind like yours. I really thought you would be quicker to understand than this. The fortune cookie I gave you had something called a Membranic Trace. A new form of bio and nano technology that binds itself to the material it is exposed to. It is a trigger per se. The Mtrace inside the fortune cookie was the trigger for the bomb on the bus."

"You sick bitch, all for what?" Faye shouted again. Alyssa continued on, ignoring the woman's outbursts.

"It is the ultimate weapon. You see, that little thing is programmed to tell the bomb when to go off. It sends a constant signal by the seconds, as it gets closer to the time, the signal increases. You cannot stop it once it is set in motion. You cannot make the bomb go off earlier or later. A better Mtrace is inside Faye, more complex, for a bigger bang." She smirked at the word 'bang.' Spike wished then that by shooting the screen, he would shoot her.

"You're saying there's a bomb connected to the thing inside Faye?" Jet asked. Alyssa smiled frigidly.

"I'm saying that in—how long is it Spike?—fifty-six hours another explosion will kill all of Alba. That's where you come in Spike. You see, the Mtrace has one incredible weakness, you destroy it and the bomb stops, no problem. That is why it is usually built within the bomb, because you touch the bomb and boom."

He hated her. The sound of her fluid, but cold voice, her dark smile, her deviant eyes, her stupid worthless tear, he hated all of it.

"I am giving you a choice. A bullet through the heart and bang, it's all done. The explosion is averted."

Something clicked within Spike's mind. He saw images of Natalie's gruesome pictures run through his mind.

"It was you. You did that to Natalie."

"Good scientists need to test the psychological repercussions of their inventions." Her eyes were like ice. "You can choose to save her. You can flee to Jupiter while the city blows to smithereens. By the way, you can run away to the end of the galaxy. The fun thing about it is that I made the Mtrace's signal's barrier almost non-existent, but the minute it disappears, like hyperspace, it sends a weak signal to have it explode. So there is no other way out Spike. You must choose. It's either her or the nine million people in Alba."

Spike's eyelids trembled and he saw her smile the minute she detected fear in his eyes. He hated himself for letting her see that.

"My brilliant mind is the legacy my father left behind."

"Why me? Why the fuck me?" Faye shouted once more. This time Alyssa took it into account and her smile grew wider.

"Well, well cowboy. You haven't told her why yet. I'm disappointed, oh well, that's your own business I suppose. Bon chance, Spiegel." She waved and the screen went blank.

"What have you done?" Faye muttered. Spike glanced up at her. She hid her eyes behind her curtain of violet hair. "What have you done!" She took a few steps back and fell into her chair. Spike glanced up at the ceiling and his hand crumpled into a tight fist. He could feel Celia and Jet's eyes on him.

_What have I done?_

* * *


	11. 55:46:09

_Des yeux qui font baiser les miens,_

_Un rire qui se perd sur sa bouche,_

_Voila le portrait sans retouche _

_De l'homme auquel j'appartiens…_

---55:46:09---

There is this fact of life most of people choose to ignore. Everything we do has a consequence and affects us in a way that often times our simples minds cannot imagine. They say that everything you do comes back three times the effect your original action had, kind of like karma that follows you within this life. At the bare age of eighteen, a young boy was in fact all alone in this world. Spike hadn't been his name then, but the truth of the matter was that he could hardly remember his real name any longer. Life had dragged him into a world of power, honor, and above all ruthlessness, all because he had always had an ease for adapting to situations so effortlessly. That is how Spike Spiegel was born. That is how he picked up all his martial arts skills, his survival methods, his careless demeanor. So long ago, that young boy made a choice to end someone's life without questioning it. For the first time, he didn't kill for survival and to endure one more day of his miserable life. He did it because he could. Young Spiegel had done as he had been instructed by his superiors and so many lives followed after that.

So where were these survival skills now? Where was his goddamn careless demeanor? Had it all been swallowed by the hungry mouth of the karmic balance? He had been left at the cave of dark beasts waiting to devour him. Sure destiny had left him his usual weapons and his senses were still keen and young, but it was all dark. He couldn't see anywhere and his skills mattered none in this situation. The beasts had forced him against a cliff. He could feel the breeze rushing from below and all he could do was beg that they wouldn't push him closer and closer to the edge, because Spike Spiegel wouldn't fall to his death. Instead, he would dangle endlessly in the air without ever reaching the bottom. That is how his life was, without a black sudden end to it. Death wouldn't catch his fall, nothing would.

Celia, Jet, and Spike all sat idly in the lounge area staring at each other with concerned, yet helpless expressions. No one had anything to say. No one had anything to contribute. Faye had sat with them for a while waiting for Ed to come out and reveal some kind of miracle clue that the paper Alyssa sent them might hold. However, after having spotted Spike watching her several times, she had just got up and left for her room. She had every reason to despise him, he reasoned for her. After all, he was the cause of everything. He had returned into her life, caused absolute chaos, and now he had no idea how to stop it.

Time ticked away as they waited. Spike glanced down at his watch, one minute less for Faye Valentine. He had a sudden urge to throw up and immediately propped himself up ready to sprint for the bathroom, but stopped himself as the nausea washed away. Anxiety replaced it for now he had no choice but to think about everything that happened in the last 24 hours. Everything had unfurled so chaotically calculated that it made him sick to his stomach.

"Sit Spike, you're making me nervous," Jet muttered coldly, like a parent addressing their scorned child.

"I can't. We've been waiting for fifteen minutes. She should have something by now," Spike responded sternly. Jet sat up and lifted his chin up to face him.

"She'll come out when she's ready." He clenched his teeth and narrowed his stare, almost as if trying to control the urge to lunge at him.

"Maybe she's bluffing." Celia uttered with serious nervousness as more of an attempt at distraction than a suggestion.

"We're just wasting time." Spike muttered. He was tired of waiting, of being stared at like a scorned child, of everything. He was going to find a way to save her. He wasn't going to stand by and let her—

_…There is no other way out Spike. You must choose. _

No, he refused to even think about that. There had to be another way. He started to walk over towards the circular hallway when he felt Jet's large body behind him. His heavy cyborg hand turned Spike around and pushed him against the wall. With that one powerfully judging hand, he cornered him by his collar. Spike didn't fight it. He predicted each move with ease, but let the man have his way. When he glanced up to meet his old comrade's eyes, he wished he couldn't read the emotions of others anymore. He wished he didn't have that stupid keen sense anymore.

"I told you to sit the fuck down." Jet uttered slowly, emphasizing each word with poignant anger. Spike didn't respond, just simply stared, part of him scared of his partner for the first time in his life. Not of what he would do, but of what he was thinking. Jet was never one to judge, no matter how angry he got when you left him and no matter how crazy you were. He was a closet softie, always protecting those lost souls that came under his wing. "Don't you understand, we have no other choice?" He had this hurt and weak ring in his voice. Spike hated it. He had never seen Jet too vulnerable. Vulnerability made him more uncomfortable than anything.

"We're wasting the time away when we could be doing something, anything—I don't know."

"That's right you don't know. You don't know anything. You don't know the hell kind of impact you had when you left. You don't know the hell kind of impact you had when you came back. You never know about anyone but yourself. You never give a shit about anyone but yourself." Jet's hand trembled and tightened around his neck as he spoke. "Well Spike, this is different. This isn't like the times you ran off, or she ran off and then you came back and everything was the same. There is no bounty to screw up, but the lives of your goddamn comrades, of the only people who have ever given a shit about you. Do you even understand that word? Do you care?"

Spike made no motion to answer the question. Instead, he cast his mismatched russet eyes down, not wanting to bear the powerless guilt of his partner.

"I shouldn't have let you on this ship. I shouldn't have allowed you to come back so easily. I shouldn't have let you near her. I shouldn't have let you go and kill yourself like that. I shouldn't have…" He spat ruefully, in spurts of air, addressing himself more than Spike.

"Jet," Spike glanced up and placed a hand on his arm. "You can't blame yourself for this one. It's not your fault. It won't solve anything if you blame it on yourself." Jet's arm was now visibly shaking and he seemed almost appalled by what Spike had just said. The heavy arm slowly pulled away and his face slowly fell perhaps out of shame or pure confusion at his own reaction. Jet stood paralyzed for a few seconds, his shoulders slumped, and his eyes pensively darted towards the ground. Then, he just walked away towards the room where he kept his bonsai.

Spike fully breathed out for the first time since Jet had gripped him. He glanced over at Celia, who had stood still witnessing the entire episode without saying a word. Her violet eyes focused on Spike with some somber and cynically reproachful expectancy that he would say something, but he had no idea what she wanted to hear.

"What do you want me to say Celia?" His voice was barely audible. She shook her head with a disapproving frown.

"Nothing, kid. Listen, I'm only going to bother with this, because I may be the only coherent voice in this whole damn ship now. So Spike, what are you going to do?"

What was he going to do? What the hell kind of question was that? Spike had no idea. He couldn't even think straight at the moment.

"I don't know yet."

"Which one would you choose?" Her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed anticipating the answer, almost ready to flinch at his choice.

"How can you ask me that?" Spike glared at her in disbelief.

"You better think about it." She placed her palm against her lips as if some horrible sound were about to escape her and she had just stopped it. Her eyes shifted to the side for a moment and then returned their focus on him. Her hand fell to her side. "I hope you love her. I hope she's that important to you. I hope that she's not going through this for nothing."

Spike didn't respond for a long while, and then shaking his head he replied. "I'm not going to make that choice ever. There is no way I can. I—I'm not going to lose Faye to someone like that, not for this, and certainly not for me." His thoughts came out jagged and with an incoherent determination backing them up. Then a feeling of bitter resignation followed. "Everything I lived for died that day and I should have died along with it." Celia just narrowed her eyes on him. She suddenly closed in on him and pushed her fist against his chest as if trying to hold his guilt inside, as if trying to prevent him from spilling himself on the ground.

"I told you once and I'll tell you again. I don't know much of a crap about your past nor do I care. All I know is that if you give up now, whoever is doing this wins. Hell, she's already won. You're already lost and traumatized, but guess what? You're going to go out there and save her. This isn't just your loss now or a vendetta against you, it's against all of us." Her voice undulated with anger.

_What have you done?_ Faye's voice rang in his ears.

"Alyssa saved me. She's the one who found me and then called you to pick me up. She's the reason I'm alive. I'm alive so she can torture me." Spike's voice trembled, disgusted at his own life, disgusted at the irony of it all. Celia eyes widened and then narrowed with disbelief, not at his revelation like he thought.

"I have seen horrible things in my life. Things I wish I couldn't remember. Everyone has. You're different. One day you'll get it. I have faith in that." Celia's eyes shifted up and to left probably recalling an old memory too painful to express.

"What would you do then?" Unlike most men, he didn't think of comforting the old woman. It had never been his sort of thing to do that. Spike fought and analyzed people not comforted them.

Celia's raging violet eyes focused back on him. "I would find her. I would look for answers through her. And above all, I would be ready to make a choice."

Spike tore his gaze away from her demanding eyes. He heard her heavy sigh and then a few steps towards the hangar.

"I'm going to get out of here, before I get all sentimental." Then some more steps.

"Celia!" He called to her. "Get out of the city. It's—go to Tharsis or Olympus, just get out of Alba."

"I'll wait for your decision here, Spike. I'm not going anywhere." She simply said and walked out of the ship. He held his breath in, part of him unsure if he would ever see her again. Spike turned around sensing someone behind him. At the entrance of the main hallway stood Jet, leaning against the wall, with a sad determination in his eyes.

"You're right, we can't just sit by and let time waste away. We can't afford that." He stated dryly and then headed upstairs towards Faye's room. Spike followed him until about the foot of the stairs. He decided to wait for them there, perhaps afraid to face Faye for now. He knocked on her door several times to no avail. He shook his head, his brows furrowing in his comical expression of frustration while he muttered the words, "'ttaku, women." His pounds became louder. "Oi Faye, get the hell out here, so we can talk."

"Fine all right! No need to throw the goddamn door down." Faye's muffled voice emerged through the cold metal walls. For a moment, it was as if everything had returned to normal. Just for a moment though, because as Spike glanced down at his wrist, he saw the reality wasting away by the seconds.

* * *

"A heart transplant." Spike uttered proudly as if a brilliant light bulb had gone off just at the right time. Jet who sat across from him on the yellow couch simply stared idly at him.

"It's not safe. It takes months to genetically harvest and engineer and match and finding one would be impossible." Jet shook his head, grimacing at Spike's idea. Spike frowned, not such a brilliant light bulb after all.

"Well, we could to try to fry it. I don't know."

"It's not eggs Spike. You can't just fry it without," Jet paused glancing at Faye sitting at the stairs. Spike followed his eyes and every time he saw her like that it caused a pang in his chest that he wished would stop. Her head hung low and her emerald stare seemed lost somewhere deep in the stained walls of the Bebop. She probably wasn't even listening. He wondered what she was thinking, if she hated him. "Without killing her." Jet finished his sentence after assessing the fact that Faye Valentine was not listening to a word they were saying.

"Well, then what do you suggest? I mean you've been shooting down everything I've said." Spike grumbled not taking his eyes off Faye.

"That's because they're stupid ideas." Spike glanced at his partner who simply shook his head. Spike rose from his seat, his one good eye wild with frustration

"Well, we can't just sit around and…"

"Stop…" Faye's careful voice emerged. Spike flinched at the painful lull in her tone of voice. "Just stop it." Her tone changed to a more demanding one. Jet glanced her way with a melancholy expression on his face. Spike was afraid to turn his head and meet her gaze. He was afraid to look into those beautiful emerald eyes of hers and find feelings in her and himself he did not want to confront, especially not now. "I can't do this. I can't listen to this."

Spike frowned, so she had been listening after all. He finally mustered the courage to slowly turn his head her way. She sat still in the same manner, except her eyes were cast down. She suddenly grabbed onto the metal railings of the stairs and pulled herself up. She trudged the two steps left to the grounds and then turned left down the hall in the direction of the hangar.

_Stop her, _he told himself. Ignoring his illogical fears, he quickly ran to her and grabbed her—sternly, but not too forcefully—by the shoulders. She stopped, but didn't move or talk for what felt like an eternity. He couldn't say anything either. He had told himself to chase after her, but hadn't thought about what he would say to her.

"Don't touch me." The soft echo of her voice trembled against the walls. "Please, just don't touch me." Spike swallowed hard and slowly let her go.

"We need you here." His tone expressed no certain feeling, but just a monotonous emptiness that always pervaded around him no matter what the situation.

"What do you want from me?" She whispered after another long pause. Her shoulders tensed up. "Fuck it all. I can find the cure or whatever myself." She whipped herself around and emotionally raging emerald eyes met with two mismatched solemn ones. "I don't need you! I don't need anyone!" Her lips shuddered with every word. "I'll just find her and torture her until she tells me—tells me—and then…" Her voice broke and her head slumped. No Valentine pride to witness here, just a broken and confused woman trying to find her place in this old forsaken ship. In an impulse, his hand reached towards her chin and pulled her eyes back up to his. Her eyes were full with renegade tears and her face as frail as ever. A wry expression washed over Spike's face. He wished that he had never seen Faye Valentine as vulnerable as she looked, standing right here in front of him without any regard for her own pride.

"I said don't touch me." Her eyes heaved a fierce jade stare towards him and she slapped his hand away. "I don't want your pity or sympathy. That's not how it works Spike. You don't ever get to feel sorry for me. No one ever gets to feel sorry for Faye Valentine." She brought her hand up to his lips and pressed her palm against them. He shivered against her touch as it almost hurt to feel her near him. Her lips parted about to say something else, but the sudden below of a shout and several eager barks interrupted her.

As soon as they heard Ed's shriek, Faye, Spike, and Jet rushed into the circular hallway to find the kid. They found her, eyes wide clenching the paper in her hands with satisfied smile of her face. "Ed understands now!"

"Good god Ed, finally." Jet muttered. His face contorted with frustration and then eased with some relief.

"So what the hell does that all mean?" Spike rubbed the side of his head and stole a glance at Faye's direction. She had her eyes focused on the kid, both brows crumpled with worry and anticipation. He shook his head and turned his attention back to Ed. He needed to focus. The shrew would be fine, just fine.

"It's an encoded manual on the components of the chippu-chippu inside Faye-faye." Ed blabbered the answer while drooling with excitement.

"I told you not to call me that." Faye grumbled.

"It works using a signal to send to the bomb, but it needs something else in order for it to work." Ed ignore her and continued on.

"Something else?" Jet questioned her, she might as well be talking in riddles.

"An antenna to receive the signal and send it off silly! Faye-faye is the transmitter, but not the sensor. The signals are given off in petawaves, which ping," She said this while causing her whole body to vibrate at the ping, "off the sensor, and sends the signal to the bomb."

"So if we find the sensor we can stop the bomb?" Spike asked with some giddy anticipation.

"Uhh," Ed hesitated, her eyebrows suddenly frowning. "The sensor is usually built into the bomb."

"But we can find the bomb and do something about it. Anything!" Faye interjected. "So what are you waiting for Ed? Go find the signal or whatever!"

Ed smiled wide. "It'll take Ed some time." Then she ran off muttering to herself, "Discern waves, track signal, narrow the field, close on the ping…" Then down she plopped by her tomato, and Ein by her. She placed her goggles on and some headphones on Ein. The dog flinched, but then simply resigned himself to laying by his human companion.

"Oi Ed? What's with Ein and the headphones?" Jet asked while scratching his head.

"Maybe Ein can hear the pings when Ed can't."

"There's a chance then, a good chance." Spike muttered, mostly to himself, but he caught the attention of Faye who turned to him with unreadable eyes.

"Yeah, just maybe there is chance." She pointed to the digital watch on his wrist. He lifted it up and suddenly she just waved at him and shook her head. She didn't want to know after all.

"It would help if we could find her." Spike suggested, lowering his arm to his side. He didn't want to look at it either. "We should have put a trace on all the incoming calls."

"Oops!" Ed shouted suddenly. "Ed completely forgot! Ed places a trace on all calls to the Bebop, Jet asked to."

"I did?" Jet's brows furrowed, then a confused smile.

"You're getting senile Jet." Spike muttered with a smirk. Maybe Fate was staring to come on his side once again.

He glanced over at her as she walked, a bit presumptuously, by his side along 27th street. Ed had traced Alyssa's call and the computer had narrowed the location to be 27th and Rouge, right smack in the middle of the French district. Jet had also taken off, after receiving some message from his one of his connections in ISSP. Spike hadn't the time to ask him about it since he practically had to chase after Faye as soon as Ed told them the address of the call. Not wanting to confront her, Spike resigned to simply following quietly after her and kept his thoughts and objections to himself. As they both trudged the colder streets of the French Riviera, he would occasionally shift his eyes to the side and catch her determined sparkling eyes with that casual sort of pompous walk of hers.

She hadn't objected to his company either. It seemed that for the most part she had resorted to just accepting the necessity of his presence. However, her expression revealed no annoyance or even anger with his being there. No, Faye Valentine was focused on their target and on the task at hand. Something he should have been doing as well. As he watched her, he saw her eyes suddenly overcome with a pensive glare.

"Why won't you tell me Spike?" She asked with a simple tone as if it were a mere question on the current weather. "Is it that bad? Is it so bad that you can't tell me?" Under the monotonous mask her voice wore, he heard the pain so clearly it deafened him.

"It's not that Faye. Alyssa is demented and I…" He paused not really knowing what he was even trying to say.

"Why is she after you so badly?" She whispered, her eyes still focused on the view ahead of them.

"I killed her father ten years ago in cold blood." He stated plainly. Faye glanced over at him, her eyes somewhat wide. He wasn't sure whether she was surprised at what he had done or his cool detachment from the statement.

"An assassination job for the syndicate?"

"Yeah, my not so glorious days." He replied and she made some noise of agreement as she shifted her eyes back on the path ahead. They crossed another block and she stopped and pointed.

"There it is." A simple two-story old downtown style building loomed over the two. It was brick red and the entrance small, tight and dark. All the apartments on the second floor had small window sills which some had dangling plants and small pots of flowers on there.

"Now we need to figure out which one." Spike muttered while studying the quaint little building. He gripped on his Jericho and took a deep breath.

"Hold on Gorgio, that's the easy part." She walked over to the side of the building near the fire escape stairs. "It's a bright and cool day on Alba, now who wouldn't want their windows open?" He watched her examine the building and then move around back, where the building faced yet another apartment complex back to back. Faye smiled and tapped her index finger on her nose and then pointed up towards a window. "There."

Spike smirked. "Second floor, covered window, empty sill, and at the back of the building. That was highly predictable wasn't it?"

They headed inside the complex and found the small apartment to be numbered 208. Faye took out her gun and Spike followed suit with his Jericho. Spike knocked swiftly on the door as they both stood on each side of the entrance. Nothing came, no sounds, no steps, no anything. Faye brought her ear against the door and after a few seconds she shook her head.

"There's no one in there."

"I'll go in first," Spike stated and aimed his gun at the doorknob.

"Wait! Are you insane, let's tell the whole building we're here," Faye whispered forcefully with a menacing glare.

"We don't have time for this." Spike was getting annoyed with her already.

"Hold on." She took her bracelet and twisted it revealing a tiny set of buttons. With the tip of her nails, she carefully pulled out what seemed to be a pin. She slid it into the doorknob until the pin glowed a red hue, then he heard a click and she smiled. "I love old doorknobs."

For moment he thought that it was just like old times. They were simply chasing a bounty and had to put their differences aside to bring some cash in, nothing else. This had nothing to do with them. It made what he was about to see all the more surreal.

He slowly turned the knob and let the door crack open. The dim light coming from the hall crept into the dark apartment and Spike stealthily stepped inside while holding his breath. He heard Faye soft steps behind him as she went off the right side to inspect and after a few seconds his eyes finally adjusted to the darkness. As he glanced to his right, he could see Faye scouting out the kitchen and dining room gun pointed out into the air.

"There's no one here Faye," he told her with disappointed relief. He turned to the living room and spotted a large screen with static snow projected on it.

"What the hell is that?" Faye muttered as she neared Spike. His hand scanned the wall for some switch to turn the lights on and feeling little bump, he pressed on it and light flooded the room. The first thing he heard after that was a gasp from Faye followed by a "shit." The moment his eyes scanned the room he realized where her reaction had come from and suddenly, the room had felt ten times more comforting in the darkness.

Pictures crowded the white walls of the living room. It might have been dozens of them, he couldn't really tell. He focused his attention primarily on the contents of the photos. Pictures of the Bebop, Ed, Jet, his old apartment, his Swordfish II, and random shots of him on the street were on one section. However, the next section is what made his eyelids tremble and his throat run dry. She had a picture of Julia's body on her wall, and so many of Faye and couple of Faye and him. The one that caught him was Faye and Spike dancing on the wooden floor of the Toulousse. He felt his tremors rising in him but he fought them back. Hesitantly, he glanced over at Faye who seemed stunned by the entire display. Her lips had parted and her eyes had widened as far they could go.

"What?" She managed to half-utter through another gasp. She slowly walked over the only furniture in the living room area, a large table with the screen sitting on top, a computer, and some machinery she didn't recognize as well as more pictures and some documents laying on top of the computer's keyboard. There were more pictures of him on top of the table, one of his parents, which he could barely recognize any longer, as well as one of Natalie. It was a picture of Natalie curled up in a corner, gray eyes wide with fear. He moved something and the screen went black with the white letters of "press enter" displaying against the dark background. Faye pushed the papers away from the keyboard and they scattered on the ground. She hesitantly lowered her finger and pressed on the enter key.

A hazy picture of Natalie came on, sitting down on a blue couch in a small apartment. She held a gun in her hand and her eyes were staring blankly at nothing in particular. On the corner of the screen were black numbers counting down by the seconds, at 00:20:05.

"It's bullshit Erica, she's trying to fuck with you." She muttered and Spike recalled that Jet had told him Natalie's real name was Erica Fullop. She sat there still, her shifted to the gun, and gulped down a hard and anxious swallow. "Jesus." She put the gun down on the coffee table in front of her and then rubbed her face. At that time, she still seemed like the Natalie he had met at the bar, not the cop, not the dead body he saw in the evidence photos. He could almost hear her mellow voice singing in the back of his mind.

_Quand__ il me prend dans ses bras_

_Il me parle tout bas,_

_Je__ vois la vie en rose._

She glanced down at the small watch on her wrist and let out an exasperated sigh.

"Thirteen hours. I was out thirteen hours, she could have done anything to me in that time. Fuck." Suddenly she stopped and glanced from side to side and around her apartment. She tore open her comm. and lamps and everything she could get her hands on. She finally collapsed on her knees breathing heavily, the room around her like chaos a storm left behind. "Can you hear me you sadistic bitch? Is that how you found out shit about me? Did you bug the place?"

_Il me dit des mots d'amour,_

_Des mots de tous les jours,_

_Et__ ca me fait quelque chose._

She propelled herself up and spun slowly with arms outstretched to the sides. "You want to blow up this building? And I'm the trigger huh? Bullshit. Like hell I am. I don't believe you." She hissed spitefully. "I've dealt with these bombs before, you know that. I know how they work and this is…" She swallowed the last word. "Impossible." She spat it back out in a whisper.

"Impossible," she repeated bringing her hand to her mouth as tears threatened to spill over the corners of her eyes. She ran her hands through her face and then shed her light black jacket. Near the kitchen, she opened the door to small room and went inside. Minutes later the drumming of water spilling from a showerhead could be heard.

The screen blinked black and the time on the screen shed a little over ten minutes. Now it counted down from 00:05:03.

_Il__ est entre dans mon **coeur**_

_Une__ part de bonheur_

_Dont__ je connais la cause._

His eyes fell upon the top of the tank top she was now sporting. Fresh red marks stemmed out from underneath the low collar. He recalled the nail marks in the evidence photos. Spike held his breath as he watched Natalie pace around in her destroyed living room area. When visible to the camera angle, her eyes would shift sporadically from side to side probably trying to find answer when there were none. Then she just stopped moving and stood stiff for a few seconds with her hanging low.

"She's not bluffing." She uttered suddenly as if for the first time the realization had hit her. "I can feel it, inside me, because the signal is getting stronger. That's why you picked me, because I knew. I knew about it. I knew you wouldn't be lying." Tears began streaming down her cheeks. "You gave me 30 minutes to decide knowing I couldn't call in the squad, we would never disarm it in time. We would never evacuate in time and I wouldn't believe you in time." Her voice broke as she let out a choked cry.

_C'est__ lui pour moi. Moi pour lui_

_Dans__ la vie,_

_Il me l'a dit, l'a jure pour la vie_

"Jesus," She sniffed and glanced up. A desperate look plagued her eyes. "It's too late for anything now, Erica." She suddenly gasped and gripped her chest. "It's getting closer." She sat back down on her couch and focused on the gun still sitting on the coffee table. Her trembling hands reached for it, and she cradled it in her palms for a few seconds. She began to stand up but gasped almost stumbling down.

She lifted her head up high and pressed the gun barrel against her chest. Her lips shuddered along with her trembling hands. She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. Taking in a deep breath, her eyes fluttered open once again, the look of inevitability burned in them.

_Et__ des que je l'apercois_

_Alors__ je sens en moi_

_Mon **coeur** qui bat…_

"To…" She held the gun tight with both hands and steadied it. "To God I commend my soul." A small pause followed this time, and then she cocked the gun. "Lord, save my soul."

The shot rang out and her body fell backwards. Her corpse hit the ground with a thud and the screen went blank.

Spike closed his eyes. The room spun around him and the walls around him warped into a blur. He placed his hand upon his mouth afraid he would the nausea would cause him to throw up.

"I don't want die like that." Faye's soft whisper shocked his senses from the spinning sensation. His eyes flew open and he turned his head to the side to glance at her. She gripped both her arms by the elbows, cradling herself while her head hung low.

"I'm…" He stopped himself before the apology could escape him. He touched his neck and forehead, he felt feverish and needed a cigarette badly, maybe even a drink too.

A loud slam echoed from behind them. He quickly whipped around with his handgun aimed out towards the door. Faye had spun around with gun in hand as well. The both glared fiercely at the two large bodies that emerged into the living room. Spike recognized the two men standing before them with black pistols aimed and ready. They were Alyssa's muscle men that he had seen that time he first met her at the French bar. This was a good thing. Spike felt like he needed to kill something, and there was nothing better than lackeys to satisfy the urge.

"It's them." The man with light brown hair, the taller of the two, spoke.

"Drop your weapons." The second man commanded.

"Yeah right." Faye responded and stiffened her grip on the gun.

The taller man raised his aim and pointed his gun at her head. Faye didn't even flinch, but the situation was already making Spike nervous. He had a nasty twist in his gut.

"Now, now, boys. No need to get violent." Her sultry cynical voice plagued the air around them. Spike gripped his gun so hard that if he had enough strength in him he would have already shattered it in half. His eyes shifted towards the entrance. Alyssa walked through the door and came forward into view. A sad sadistic expression governed her face.

"Alyssa!" Faye hissed and shifted her aim towards her.

"A cup of tea?" She offered cynically.

"You!" Spike shouted, but that's all the sound he could manage.

"Do you like my display? I heard you watching one of my home movies." The smirk that snuck on her lips sickened Spike.

"You had no right to bring her into this. No fucking right."

"Who? Faye?" She asked with an amused expression. "I wasn't the one who brought her into this Spike." Her tone became stern.

"What good will it do you to kill me, Alyssa? Hmm? What twisted sick shit will it fulfill?"

"Oh Faye, you and I are the same. Victims of the world around us and of this man." She laughed. She stretched her arms out and yawned. "I'm beat. I should go take a nap." She uttered so casually and turned around.

"No, you're going to tell me how to stop it." Faye shouted and then a gunshot ripped through the air towards Alyssa. The bullet had missed, plunging into the wall, and Spike couldn't tell whether it had been a warning shot or an eager accident. However, the shot had been motive enough to trigger the two large men to shoot at them. Luckily Spike had knocked the gun out of one of them, while Faye flipped the table on its side and dodged the rest of the flying bullets behind it.

"Faye shoot the gun out of his hand!" Spike shouted while dodging another punch from the largest of the two men.

"I know!" Her heard her respond and then a shot followed by a loud groan. "Spike, take care of this. I'm going after her."

Spike's eyes widened. He punched the man, then shot him in the chest and turned to Faye who had sprinted towards the door. The other man was about to grab her, when Spike kicked him back. The man lunged for Spike, but the lanky man simply moved to the side and then elbowed him on the back. As soon as the man landed, Spike had his Jericho pressed against the side of his head.

"Don't move. Just tell me, where the fuck is she going?" He demanded from the groaning man, but received no answer. Spike had no time for this.

"Just shoot." The man said pulling himself up. Spike groaned and hit the man on the back of his neck with the handle of his gun.

Spike ran down the stairs after Faye. He knew Alyssa wouldn't hurt her, it would ruin her plans. But Faye might kill her and they may need her later on if they can't find another way to stop it. He thought back to Natalie's face as she pulled the trigger. He couldn't let Faye die like that. No one deserved to die like that.

He finally emerged into the street, and he glanced from side to side. In the distance, he spotted Faye running back towards him.

"I don't know where the hell she went. She just disappeared. Fuck!"

Spike suddenly felt his breath stop short as he could sense someone around them. He whipped around and saw the man he had knocked out aiming the gun at Faye, finger about to pull the trigger. Spike shot him in that instant, and the man's renegade bullet rang towards the sky.

Spike stared at the dead body for a few seconds and then glanced towards Faye. She stood there still, arms dangling off to her sides, with her gun loosely in one hand. Her emerald orbs reflected little if any emotion. She turned to him suddenly, eyes vibrant with agony.

"Thanks." She muttered just as the bellow of sirens echoed through the streets.

"Yeah." He responded, choked up in some sensation he could not explain. Perhaps it was utter fear or anxiety or maybe it was his body slowly numbing to the core. Was it the shock of the shrew actually thanking him for once? No, it was the irony behind it. His mind finally found words to express the feeling reverberating in him.

_Why the hell would you thank me if I'm reason you're going to die?_

* * *

Thanks so much for all your reviews. I was totally honored to know that so many people thought the chapter was good. :D I also did take all suggestions into consideration and I hope that it is reflected in this new chapter. Thanks for reading you guys. I was especially happy to see that some of the Bebop writers I admire like my story. 

Kind of a slow chapter, but it picks up again on the next one. It might take me a while to get it written because it's going to be an extra hard chapter.

Lyrics from "La Vie en Rose"


	12. 48:20:01

**Breaking Point**_  
  
_

---48:20:01---

He wandered aimlessly down the dark streets until his feet—or desires for that matter—brought him to her doorstep. Before gaining the courage to knock, he touched the door slightly so perhaps he could feel that incandescent warmth of hers pouring out the cracks of her entrance. That's when he heard it. One little sob that followed endless others and pushed against the door beckoning it to open. He shook the startled look from his face and slowly turned to the knob. Yes, she had left it open. Open for him, perhaps? She knew better than to leave herself so open like that.

He stealthily stepped past the door frame into a room he expected to be warm and full of her light. Instead, darkness and cold greeted him, the scent of salt lingering in the air. His heart stopped the minute he saw her slumped against the corner. She had pulled her thighs against her chest, and her beautiful blonde hair dripped down her legs as her head lay on her knees.

"Julia?" He thought he asked, but he couldn't even hear himself. Her sobs pounded in his ears deafening them from everything else. Her head immediately whipped up, her tears glowing white in the dark. He tried to swallow the burning in his throat as he watched her hands clawing her legs. So much anger poured out of her blue eyes and then they softened to an empty sadness that only hurt him more to see. She glanced back down as another sob escaped her lips. As she slowly lifted her face again, the blonde hair faded into the darkness and her skin became paler against the night. The emerald eyes that now glared forcefully at him succumbed to painful resentment.

He felt himself shaking all over. '_No_,' he told himself, '_I can't be seeing this._'

"Stop it!" He shouted and her eyes were startled into sudden sadness. Her short dark hair drooped dejectedly at her sides and her mouth trembled with whimpers. "Faye…" He said sincerely sorry that he had shouted at her. The minute she heard her name uttered from his lips the anger returned and her hand reached forward into the darkness. Her emerald eyes became smoldered with black anger and her dark hair elongated into black curls. Even her pale skin had turned olive in the night. It was Alyssa.

Sometimes the nights would end up like this and she didn't know how the pain washed over her so fast like a giant wave that engulfed her and sank her forcefully to the pit of the ocean. At these times, she would blare up her emotions and let her anger consume her. Wedged in a corner, she would grip her hair, threaten to rip it out, and deciding against the pain that would cause, she would just run her fingers through it—nails pressed hard against the scalp. Rocking back and forth, the tears would burn down her cheeks leaving red streaks on her sallow face. Her heart throbbed and pushed against her chest, almost forcing it open and almost allowing her emotions to spill at her feet.

She couldn't avoid it. She hated him with the very fervor of her being and that hate threatened to tear her into thin strands until nothing remained but her revulsion for him written on the strips of flesh. She reached out in front of her, her hand in a claw-like manner, and pretended he was there for just a second. She could then rip out his soul like he had done hers. She could scratch his stained surface until nothing but the core was left. But before her hand could fill her invisible wish, the sadness would overcome the anger. It would always win their constant battles in the stadium of her broken heart. Sadness, sadness, sadness! How she hated it more than him!

Everything she thought, he could hear. Everything she felt burned inside him. He wanted it to stop so much. He hated her just as much as she hated him, or he wanted to at least. He hated his past and everything he did more than he hated her.

'_Alyssa!_' His heart shouted with scorn. "Alyssa!"

But the moment the world heard him, she disappeared and he was left to himself and his darkness.

------

"Spike," that voice sounded so distant. "Spike." It was cold, so damn cold.

"Spike!" Two hands gripped his shoulders while his whole body quaked as if each and every nerve were vibrating throughout him. His eyes opened slowly in a daze and met with two emerald ones.

"Faye?" He asked though he could barely hear his own voice. Then it hit him like a tidal wave of reverie. The dream he had just had. The dream about Julia, about Faye, and …

"Spike, you're shaking again." She stated with a bit of concern slurring out of her voice. He simply stared at her, that same face that only a few seconds ago had been sobbing because of him. Her eyebrows scrunched with puzzlement, and she slowly pulled her hands off his shoulders. He snapped out of his trance as soon as Faye looked away

Spike realized he had dozed off while sitting on the yellow couch. He lifted his trembling arm to glance at the watch on his wrist. He had only been out for ten minutes or so.

"Jet's not here yet?" He asked, not wanting to look at her again. She collapsed lazily on the spot next to him.

"Nope," she carelessly responded. Jet had phoned in about two hours ago saying that he would be a while, something about finding an important clue he needed to check out. Meanwhile, Faye's time was down to barely two days.

_As she slowly lifted her face again, the blonde hair faded into the darkness and her skin became paler against the night._

Bits and images of the dream surfaced in his mind and as they did his tremors grew stronger.

"My god, are you all right?" Faye asked with a startled tone.

"Yeah, I'm just going to go get my…" He didn't finish his sentence and instead began to stand up.

"Do you need some help?" She offered sincerely with one hand extended towards him. His heart raced at her words and he didn't know why. He fought the urge to slap her considerate gesture away. He felt angry at her at that moment, so fucking angry. Didn't she realize what was happening to her? Why was she being so attentive anyway—because—didn't she hate him? She had to hate him after everything that he had done. After seeing all those damn pictures on the wall and Natalie's fate, he would have thought that she would be frightened as the time shed off seconds of everyone's lives. Instead, there she sat with one arm slightly extended and sincere emerald eyes gazing at him with slight concern.

Hate, what a corrosive word to describe such an idle emotion. Hate is what he felt then, not at her, not at anything in particular at all. His hate stemmed from the absurdity of the situation and feelings that he could no longer control. His heavy eyes narrowed on her, his left eye remembering the past, remembering her hand holding his while he shook that one late night after meeting Alyssa for the first time. After all that had happened, Faye Valentine didn't look one bit fragile or fearful. What had Jet told him once? Yes, that he who shows no fear while the rest around him are panicking has yet to fully grasp his situation. Was that Faye's problem? Had she yet to fully grasp everything evolving around her? No, the woman seemed afraid all those times, so fearful for her own life. This was different.

"Spike, what the fuck is wrong with you? I'm just offering help, you invalid. No need to look at me like I'm insane." She blurted out taking back her hand and pursing her lips into a prideful pout.

Spike didn't respond, but kept on walking towards his room. A tiny smirk played on his lips. That woman was so confusing and intriguing. That dumb shrew had some hidden kindness which he hated so much, because it made him want to care for her. It nearly forced him to tell her to stop and let herself go. Let all those emotions and resentments she had because of the past go. Then again, who was he to talk about the past that way? He felt like bursting out in laughter or bursting out in guilt, whichever it was.

_I will destroy that which you care for the most._

His thoughts trembled along with rest of his limbs. When had he grown to care for her this much anyway? When had he grown to want to know so much about her? It wasn't about her. His confusion and emotions stemmed from the bomb, and goddamn Alyssa and her sick plans and—well—certainly not Faye.

He entered his dark room and didn't bother to flip the switch. He knew exactly where his pill bottle lay, and he reached towards his bed to grab it. His heart jumped when he felt the pill bottle reach towards him instead.

"Here," Julia's voice emerged, and he stood frozen, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. If it were possible to describe what touching nothingness was like, then it would be like sensing irony with the tips of one's fingers. She sat on his crumpled sheets sporting that glowing and knowing pensive sapphire glare. He had been holding on to her hand and the pill bottle so tightly as if to grasp any sensation of hers. Realizing he would feel nothing but a cold numbing tingling, he let her hand go and grabbed his pill bottle. "I know when it happened," she said leaning her head back with her arms propped up behind her on the bed.

"When what?" He asked after he had popped the pill into his mouth, but his seizure had ceased already. She glanced at him again and he could almost feel her glare sinking into him and through him.

"When you fell in love with her." The bottle slipped from his hand and bounced slightly off the metal floor. Usually, he would have reacted by then, responded by then, and stopped the bottle before it hit the floor. It seemed as though his mind had a mental block on the subject that disallowed him to process the entire concept. "Well, at least when a part of you realized it. After all, falling in love is such an unpredictable thing." Her tone sounded like those in videos where they try to teach teenagers about sex ed. That all-knowing tone that screamed "you've just learned something new," when in reality, nearly everyone knew at least the basics or more before watching the video. Those that bragged usually knew the least about the subject, and the rest were too embarrassed to admit they did. Was he the bragger or just embarrassed?

She stood up still staring through him so transparently that he thought he might be the one to vanish instead of her. "You see, it was when she disappeared that a part of you first realized it. Alyssa bet on it based on some show on your part, but you really knew when life threatened to take it away from you."

"Take it away from me _again_." Stop, he needed to stop himself. No revelations for tonight, Spiegel. There were too many other problems for him to admit or realize anything right then. _Too many_, his mind whispered as he crumpled his fist.

"But just because you love her doesn't give you the right to choose her fate for her." Julia neared him and for some reason his heart punched his chest continually as an anxious fear filled his lungs.

"Wh-," He took in a deep breath. "What are you talking about?"

"Why would 'Faye thank you when she's going to die'?" Julia didn't ask, she stated. "She doesn't have a bomb in her Spike. The city does. Have you chosen the nine million people over Faye?" His eyes widened and a hot wave of claustrophobia drowned him.

_It's nine million people or her…_

"No, I haven't—it's not—fuck." Truthfully, he had not chosen anything. To him, it had never been his choice. It hadn't been his choice to be alive. It hadn't been his choice for Alyssa to use Faye against him. How could any of this be his choice? Choices are mere illusions in life. They had always been an illusion in his life.

"So then are you going to let nine million people die?"

The Hammerhead's engine bellowed throughout the Bebop announcing the—_god, thank you_—much awaited return of Jet Black. So little Spiegel ran away like a frightened child, away from the ever-so-knowing parent ready to teach him a lesson or two. He ran away before he learned too much for his own good and before he started confusing the memory of Julia for this ghost that every so often stood in front of him like she had done in the past.

"Jet, fucken finally. Where the hell have you been?" Spike muttered climbing down the stairs and attacking his comrade for answers. Ed, who had planted herself in a spot under the metal stairs, perked her head up as Jet entered like a wary salesman into the lounge with a medium-sized white box in his hands.

"Is that a gift for Ed?" She inquired, somewhat preoccupied with whatever contraption she had been working on for the last two hours.

"No Ed, but I need you to do something right now. I know you're busy, but this is important." Jet frowned as he said it. Ed muttered an incoherent word that sounded like 'nyah' and slid her goggles to the top of her forehead. "I need you to find everything you can about Erica Fullop. I want to know who she really is." Ed stared with a puzzled gleam in her eyes.

"Erica Fullop. Erica, America, where are you from?" She slid her goggles on and slipped into her sea of colorful doodles, codes, and electronic pathways.

"Natalie? What's this all of the sudden?" Spike bellowed perplexedly annoyed. "And what the hell is that?" He pointed at Jet's box.

"Hey, neither of you have any right to be angry at me. I just spent two hours straight digging through boxes like this to find…" He turned the box around and pointed at the name written on there with a black marker. Spike read the year and then the name, Henri Reve.

"What is that?" Faye inquired. The box really didn't mean much to Spike either.

"You two don't know much of anything. It's a cold case box. At first, I doubted they kept one, but they do for any open cases. Just to keep some evidence and whatnot. After they're solved, they throw the stuff away and keep it stored in the system instead." The large metal arm set the box down and opened it. Spike peeked inside curiously afraid of it for some reason. Perhaps because he would find something that would harm him more than help him.

The box held a folder with some papers, evidence photos, coroner's report and other nonsensical stuff that Spike didn't bother to read too carefully. His Reve's wallet lay in there along with some other personal belongings.

"What about the undercover cop though, Erica Fullop?" Spike recalled his line of questioning as Faye pried the box away from him.

"Well, I was wondering why ISSP had her investigation aborted so dramatically. It turns out her death wasn't nearly as important to investigate as something else." Jet glanced towards Ed.

"What?"

"Agent Erica Fullop was not really ISSP. They discovered that her records don't make sense, because they were falsified. She was assigned to her mission about a year ago, and now there's an internal affairs investigation going on to find out why in the hell no one noticed that Erica Fullop didn't exist until then." Jet rubbed his eyebrow back and forth as if trying to understand the details himself. He reached down to grab a folder that Faye had pulled out of the box and discarded on the table.

"I don't know how this helps us." Spike muttered still staring at his comrade with utter confusion. Jet ignored him and began thumbing through the report, while Faye examined the small belongings. One particular item, a silver necklace with a cross pendant on it, caught her attention, and she sat there for a bit mesmerized and intrigued by it. That woman could be so easily distracted sometimes. Spike glanced again in the box and spotted the corner of a thin plastic case jutting out of a half-burnt book.

"What's this?" He asked to no one in particular as he pulled it out. Jet pointed to the computer sitting next to the box. After placing the disc inside, he accessed it to find only a video feed file. It was titled Alyssa Reve.

-------

She grinned brightly at the camera and then ran towards a large tree in the background. The curls danced against her back as her little feet bounced off the ground. Her simple white dress sparkled in the sunlight and her little gloved hands touched the tree with delight before turning back to the camera again.

"And this here is Grandpere, and that's well, because I never really had a grandpere and I figured that this very old and tall tree must be some little trees' grandpere." Alyssa's cheeks had become flushed from the small run.

"Oh, how's Grandpere feeling today?" A man's voice echoed in the background. Alyssa smiled and whispered to the tree in French.

"He's very good today because the sun's particularly bright." She uttered, nodding her head. A gasp emerged from her lips when she felt some small crawling on her hand. A brownish lizard had curiously made its way to the little French girl, and Alyssa—quite frightened by the obtrusive little thing—shook it off her hand followed by a yelp and an eager stomp of her foot.

"Alyssa!" The man's voice said quite apprehensively. "Qu'est-ce que tu fait?"

Spike frowned, he didn't understand much French at all, and by the grunt that Jet made, he probably didn't either. The film had hardly anything useful on it anyway, so he began to lean over to the computer to turn it off. It was then that Faye placed her palm on his hand, and he glanced at her. Her emerald eyes remained somberly transfixed on the film.

"Why did you do that, Alyssa?" Faye spoke after the man's voice. Spike's eyes widened and he slowly lowered his hand. "It scared me." Faye translated little Alyssa's response.

"You could have just set it down and let it go. You didn't have to do that." Alyssa frowned and glanced down. A man emerged into the picture, Henri Reve. He crouched down to her level and lifted her chin up. "Listen to me, you should never take a life because you can, you understand?" Faye's voice became quieter.

"I'm sorry, papa. I understand." She responded.

"Promise me you won't do that." Spike could hear a slight hesitation in Faye's voice and as he glanced back at her he noticed she had the crucifix pendant crumpled in her fist, the long silver chain slipping out of the cracks between her fingers. Her eyes had become opaque with an odd kind of sadness.

"I won't, but…" Alyssa hesitated. "Only if you promise me you won't ever leave me like mama." Faye breathed in deeply.

"Of course not, my little doll. Never."

Out of the corner of his eye, Spike saw as Jet reached over and stopped the film. They remained silent for a few minutes Spike's gaze fixed on Faye, while she had sheepishly or irritably darted her glare to the ground.

"I didn't know you spoke French." Jet sliced open the silence. Faye glanced up at Spike. He couldn't quite comprehend what her eyes tried to tell him. If they were eyes full of anger, or hate, or fear, or all the above, he had no idea anymore. Then it hit him, why Faye had been acting so careless earlier. She had probably chosen her life already over the rest of the city, and seeing Natalie's traumatic death had probably propelled her to that decision. In her head, there must have been some logical rationalization she had made up. Something like it wasn't her fault after all that this was happening. This lay on the shoulders of both him and Alyssa, but not her. She couldn't help that some psycho had decided she wanted to blow up the city. Like hell she would let herself die like Natalie, no, a whole city would have to fall before she did that.

Spike understood her glare then. She had come to the realization that it wouldn't be so easy anymore. She couldn't detach herself anymore, and this forced Spike Spiegel to come a realization of his own.

_I will not the same mistake twice. I will not lose someone else to revenge._

"I did this, Faye, to you. Nine million people might die, because of me." Spike's mismatched russet eyes stared deep into hers, so deep that his guilt sank into her strange kind of warmth. Her eyes narrowed on him and as her lips parted to respond, fear clutched at his throat. He wanted to laugh in spite of himself. Here stood a man that had overcome anything with nonchalance, but the measly probability that this woman might despise him more than anything—which before he rather enjoyed the thought that she tried, but deep inside wouldn't—frightened him.

"Let's stop her. I don't care how we do it, but let's—goddamn do it." With unrelenting eyes and a stern voice, she spoke and stood up. Her shoulders lagged a little as if a heavy weight pulled down on the slender woman, probably Spike's guilt that she had to bear along with the rest of Alba.

"Found you!" Ed suddenly shouted out and attracted the attention of the rest of the crew. "Erica Fullop's last known real name is Natalie Remords, special ops agent in the hush-hush military. She was signed on as an employee under Biometrics Technology five years ago."

Spike shot up from his seat. Biometrics Technology had a familiar ring to it. His brow furrowed in frustration as he dug through the chaotic remains of thought-process abilities in his mind. Then it finally hit him and he threw an alarmed glance over at Jet.

"Holy shit," was all Jet seemed able to mutter. Spike's stomach had dropped to the ground.

"Well, what is it?" Faye questioned with an irritated expression at the fact she had been left out of their conversation.

"Alyssa's father, Henri Reve, worked for Biometrics Technology." Spike watched as her eyes widened. They urgently beseeched him to recall something he had forgotten entirely.

_"I've dealt with these bombs before, you know that. I know how they work and this is…" Natalie swallowed the last word. "Impossible." She spat it back out in a whisper._

Spike mentally reproached himself. How could he have missed that completely?

Jet stood up after her and as he did a small object fell to the ground, the old half broken remote. The hologram screen turned on and the monotonous voice of the newscast filled the room.

"We are continuing our live coverage on the Oak School tragedy and we bring you this special report update straight from the City Council office. Earlier tonight, the Tri-Cities Council of Mars placed a bounty worth 100 million woolongs for the capture of the mastermind behind the Oak School Terrorist attack." The woman explained as the large number flashed on the screen. The woman's idle voice filled the halls of the Bebop as she continued on with her dramatized recalling of the tragic events of the day. 

Spike stood up with both his comrades on each side and glared at the screen.

"So we'll do what we do best." Jet stated. "We're bounty hunters. This is another bounty and we have the upper hand. Let's catch it."

--------

They decided to split up the tasks. Jet would try and investigate the missing pieces of Henri Reve's and Natalie's connection to Biometrics. Ed had already given Faye the task of attaching some contraption she made onto the largest antenna on Mars owned by CBC News. It would help Ed split the signal so whatever she found wouldn't be broadcasted all over the Solar System—or some hacker junk like that. Spike hadn't been too thrilled about Faye going off on her own. Then again lately he had been neglecting the fact that not only could the shrew take care of herself, but his constant fretting for her safety had seriously started to concern him.

_When you fell in love with her…_

This was a bad time for self-reflection on his actions anyway. He needed to focus on the task at hand, because it might just save her. _Damn_, there went the concern again rearing its unsightly face in his thoughts. He rubbed his temples at a weak attempt to ease away any deep meaningful and useless thoughts. _Yeah, totally useless._

They had agreed to reconvene at the Bebop in about four hours—not nearly enough time to gather any sort of useful information, but it would have to do. This had become a bounty hunting job, but only for the mere purpose of psychological ease. The problems remained the same. A bomb would still explode in less than two days and Faye, along with the rest of them, still ran the risk of losing her life.

Spike's head throbbed from guilt, exhaustion, or perhaps mere frustration. He had this odd nervousness about him, and every time he closed his eyes they stung. They stung so badly he thought he would end up in tears, and the random spouts of urges to gag that came along with it had begun to annoy him. That had always bothered him. Anyone could convince their mind to back off a thought or feeling, but the body always refused. It had this revolutionary sense of self, and with some compelling justification it would rebel against all wishes of the mind. If Spike needed to be calm, his head would throb. If he needed to sleep, the very sound of his heart beating would keep him awake. If he needed to focus, his ears would ring and he would lose complete balance over his limbs.

_Just focus Spiegel. Focus and it'll all come to you. The solution to it all is right in front of me. I just can't see it, because I can't focus on it._

He had spent the past three hours of the early morning or very late night chasing clues around the city—that by the way is supposed to never sleep—trying to find remnants from the company Henri Reve had worked for, Biometrics Labs. All the nonsense and directions he received led him to an abandoned building in the warehouse district. It had a large white sign and black letters, which read 'Condemned.' The area around it had been pretty much left nearly desolate, except for an old truck parked on the right side. It was a wonder that a building like this could stay empty for so long in such a large city.

Despite his pessimistic attitude, which told him that he wasted his time by even searching, he grabbed a fluorescent lamp he had brought with him and glared decisively towards the structure. He ripped off a couple boards from the entrance and trespassed into the ex-military facility. The building appeared to have two stories from the outside, but once he entered he found that the entire second floor was gone. Old boards, torn papers, broken cement, and random junk were the unhappy residents of this complex. His eyes observed his dejected surroundings once more until he squeezed them shut. He wanted to scream. Three hours of searching for fucking nothing. Nothing at all. His hand crumpled into a fist and his nails dug deep into his palm. There was no sign of the military here, but hey, at least he found some signs of life—a fucking rat, or two.

"Fuck!" He threw the lamp against one of the walls and flinched, somehow expecting that it would flatten the entire structure. The lamp crackled and then shattered once it hit the wall, and darkness consumed him once again. Where was this supposed military place anyway?

The military had always struck a raw nerve with him. Their secretiveness, the whole big guns for a bigger bang kind of thing just annoyed him. Why would anyone ever be part of some insane army of—he stopped himself in mid-thought. _Well, Spike, it sounds a lot like the syndicate. _Perhaps everyone thinks of organized crime like war and patriotism. There is pride. Yes, that pride to defend something you admire or established by someone you admire. Then there are the lackeys like he used to be. People not fighting for pride or anything in particular, but because they just found nothing better to do.

A sudden alert that someone watched him snapped his self-righteous thoughts out of his mind. He exited the abandoned building as he heard the sound of footsteps growing closer. To his misfortune, he happened to be an area devoid of proper lighting and that prohibited him from clearly seeing the two people approaching him.

"Spike Spiegel." The firm voice didn't ask, he stated.

"Who are you?" His eyes quickly adapted to the darkness. Two men stood before him, both thin, but built. Both stood in the same rigid manner with their chins high and their shoulders snapped back.

"We would like you to come with us." The one on the right told him in a monotonous command.

"Yeah, and I'd like a 100 million woolongs." He scoffed at them.

"That can be arranged." The same man responded and Spike's dark eyes narrowed. The man's tone hadn't changed. He was actually serious.

"What do you want?" Annoyed—that was the only word he found to describe his reaction at the moment—annoyed, and perhaps apprehensive.

"Information." The man on the left answered this time. "More specifically, information about Alyssa Reve."

Spike examined them a bit longer and then understood. The supposed military he had been searching for had found him instead. A sign of hope emerged for him, but also a bit of worry crept into his mind. Just how much did they know? Did they know about Faye and if they did, what did they want?

--------

"We really do not want any trouble Mr. Spiegel." An old man said as he offered Spike some tea. He gently smiled at the younger man, and his gray eyebrows curled down with content. His pulse slightly shook as he held out the saucer and the tea cup fumbled at the lack of balance. Spike shook his head and glanced around, once again trying to ease the uncomfortable feeling the entire place gave him. The two men had escorted him to a black car and led him into a large microchip manufacturing building. They confiscated his Jericho temporarily, or so they said, and led him into a large top floor office where he found himself face-to-face with General Michael Perkins. "As you can guess, we are a privately run company that just so happens to be overseen by the Martian Military. Biometrics merged secretively four years ago with the Sirius Corporation, well-known for being the largest weapons technology manufacturers in all the solar system." Old Perkins placed the tea cup down much to Spike's relief and turned to face him with another one of his grandfatherly smiles. He definitely hadn't been the kind of man Spike expected to be running a huge weapons manufacturing company. Perkins should have been on television surrounded by little brats as he narrated _Alice__ in Wonderland._

"Alyssa worked for you. You sent Natalie after her." Spike stated. That's all Perkins would have needed to say to keep Spike interested. Perkins' hands clasped together and his grin grew wider as if completely impressed that Spike had figured it all out. What was he going to do next? Here's a buck son, go buy yourself a lollipop?

"Not worked, works." His wrinkles narrowed around his blue eyes. "You see, she disappeared on us about a year ago in the middle of a project that is still pending. Natalie proved to be more of a liability than a solution." His eyes became somber. "You're the only civilian Alyssa's contacted in over a year and I want to know why Mr. Spiegel."

"I don't think so. What's in it for me?" A bit of acid rose to Spike's throat. Time ticked away and old pops here was wasting it.

"We are the ones that supplied the Tri-Cities Council with the 100 million woolongs reward." His tone remained gentle and cheerful. Spike simply glared at him, trying to unmask the hard façade of the man before him.

And it all came together. The bomb incident had frightened the crap out of the Sirius Corporation, who probably feared that someone would connect the dots if they discovered the technology had the signature of the Corporation on it, and if they traced Natalie back to Sirius like he had. This man—no matter how politely or carefully—actually had the gall of insinuating that Spike be bait for Alyssa.

"You killed her father." Perkins voice suddenly hardened. His real nature began to surface as he resorted to his real intention the minute his efforts to con Spike had been exhausted.

"The answer is no." Spike stood up and Perkins shot up from his chair slamming his fist on the desk. Spike narrowed his eyes at the man's hand that only minutes ago had been trembling by the mere weight of a tea cup. The two men that had been standing behind Spike the whole time pulled out their guns.

"You are in no position to refuse." Perkins spoke slowly emphasizing every word. Spike glanced down at his digital watch and breathed in slowly.

"Do you know what a Membranic Trace is?" Spike blurted out. He too had exhausted his options.

"How do you know about that?" The man's wrinkled brow furrowed.

"Do you know how to stop it?" Spike's heart started beating with anticipation, hope, and fear. There was a way to save her, to help her, and he would find it. He was so close to finding it.

"That's impossible. The Membranic Trace is only a theory, and that would mean that…" The old man swallowed his last words in a heavy gulp and his blue eyes had a startled expression in them as if Spike had just told him that his long lost granddaughter was alive. He looked nearly about to cry, but to Spike, all old people had that appeared that way when they wore a somber expression on their face. "She made it?"

"Can you stop it?" Spike's fist clenched anxiously.

"We'd have to see it first." General Perkins looked like nothing but a confused old man as he fell back into his chair. His voice had ceased to threaten; instead a tone of pure preoccupation trembled in his words. "Is it in you?"

"No. I'll bring it to you." Spike turned around and headed towards the door until the two men stopped him. Perkins waved at them, and they lowered their guns allowing Spike to exit the office.

"I won't let her win just yet." Spike muttered to himself as he determinedly rushed back to the Bebop.

---------

As Spike entered the Bebop, he tried to formulate a convincingly witty plan that might persuade Faye into being a military rat. The taxi ride had been long and dreadful, and he should have made his plans during it, but cabs brought about a feeling of claustrophobia in him. He shouldn't have left the Swordfish II at that abandoned warehouse, but he barely had time to think, before he had stepped inside the military boys' car. With a sigh, he slipped into the hangar and entered the hall leading inside the ship. He heard her voice and his heart jumped. He hadn't really intended to be an hour late or to listen in for that matter, but her tone had somehow willed his body to a stop.

"Damn it!" The sound of a fist pounding against Jet's chest startled Spike. Then he heard a couple of clicks of her heels. Spike instantly wished he had caught the first part of their conversation.

"Faye?" Jet's voice shook with concern.

"Today." A long pause followed and then, "today is my birthday." She uttered so softly as if she almost didn't believe it. She chuckled a few times and ended her sarcastic laughter with a scoff. "But then Alyssa probably planned it this way."

"You never told me," was all that Jet managed to say.

"Yeah, I turn the big two-five today. I wonder how many people will be celebrating their birthdays today with their families. With a cake, maybe some ice cream, and maybe some friends over. How do twenty-five year old girls celebrate their birthdays nowadays?" Her low tone bounced softly off the walls.

"I wouldn't kn-," Jet started, but Faye interrupted him. It had been a rhetorical question after all.

"You know, I didn't celebrate my nineteenth birthday. It was my last birthday back then." She sighed a long pause and then let out choked consonant. "I wish I had."

"I'm sorry." He muttered remorsefully, and Faye laughed a sincere kind of laugh like he had said the funniest little thing in the world. Spike had never really heard her laugh - only chuckle and most of all, snicker. She didn't have a haughty pretentious kind of laugh like he expected, but nice and mellow one with a down to earth lull to it. She sounded… pretty.

"Jesus, Jet." Her tone was so unexpectedly bright it might have blinded the sound waves. "I was expecting some money or something, not an apology. Figures, everyone on this ship is so damn cheap." She laughed again and her heels clicked against the metal floor twice.

"Faye?" Jet called out. "He didn't mean for you to go through this. He just doesn't know how to say it." A sigh, Spike couldn't tell from who, preceded a small moment of silence.

"Thanks Jet." Her steps echoed through the hall as she walked away. Once they had grown distant enough, Jet spoke again.

"How long are you going to stand there?" He asked and Spike shrugged, feeling as though he'd been caught red-handed in mischief. He emerged from his spot and faced the large man that now glared sternly at him.

"Yo. Sorry I'm late." Spike gave him a small apathetic wave.

"She deserves to know, Spike, why this is happening to her. You ought to tell her." His dark eyes deepened their focus almost at an attempt to burn Spike with guilt. He shrugged not really knowing how to respond. "It's not fair to her."

"I know, but right now I have something important to tell you." He copped out. "I think I may have found a chance after all."

_A chance to dance with the devil._

_-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------_

Oh loyal readers, I am so sorry it's taken so long. Next chapter will hopefully be out much faster than this one. This one was holy hell kind of hard. I hope you enjoyed it and I know it's kind of like meh towards the end, but that's because I'm building you up for something else.

Thanks to all my reviewers and a special shout out to the FayexSpike lj community for their wonderful support and help. They're just plain fun people to hang around. Thank you Red-Tenko for being my wonderful 'philosophe' and muse. Your editing was wonderful. Kaj, goddess of grammar, thank you for the lovely work you put into this one. Thanks to Beta 1 for being my sound board for all my ideas.

Lyrics found in the summary are from "Strange Love" sang by Sarah Brightman.

Thanks for reading!

**Next Time: **

"Ed, what the hell was that?" Faye's voice shuddered with confusion.

"Ed will slow down the signal and see…" She tapped some keys here and there. "And there." She pressed her last key with extra emphasis. Spike's eyes widened, and his breath caught in his throat. He hoped to God, if there was a God, that what he feared wouldn't be true. To his dismay, he was about to find out he was right…


	13. 40:35:56

---40:35:56---

An inclination towards uncaring sympathy always governed him, but he was Spike Spiegel, a name synonymous with obstinate. Not obstinate in the way that he might be resolute and unyielding in his attitude, but more like stubbornly blind to anything that he found too troublesome or boring. Yes, he was your kung-fu, gun-ho all out master of apathy. Don't blame his emotions either, poor suffering, fear, love, sadness, and hate along with the symphonic march of angst and remorse. They would knock so hard against his chest one by one begging for some duly deserved attention. Not Spike Spiegel though, this man would not be oppressed, relieved, or released by any single emotion.

So that's why he tucked away his stupid little sentimental tugs, as he called them. Sure, he had pity on the poor woman for suffering such troublesome and life-threatening events on her birthday no less, probably the first birthday she had remembered in years. But he only allowed pity, as harmless as it was, so he stubbornly ignored the rest of his nagging emotions. Besides he had entertained them enough in the past few months. He didn't mind guilt though. He held it close to him as his constant shadow and companion. Guilt always had the possibility of bringing hidden insecurities to the surface, but he had no problem taking that risk. That one remorseful sentiment had the odd effect of overriding everything he felt. This way he could keep one emotion in order and not have to deal with the rest. It was a technique he felt quite proud of having concocted.

That's how Spike Spiegel managed to walk alongside Faye without saying anything pitifully and irrelevantly stupid. He had one problem though, a non-emotion related problem. What was curiosity anyway? Did it fall under the mood or the tendency category? Whatever it fell under, Spike suffered a chronic case of it. Chronic because he could do nothing to predict or avert it. So as he walked along side the beautiful shrew, his inquisitive mind started wondering about her again. How come she spoke French? Was she French, or was it an odd ironic coincidence she spoke it? What was she thinking right now? Did she feel hopeless?

He scowled mentally at his wandering mind. He just wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. Now that he thought back to it, he had been surprised that she didn't protest or scold him for even insinuating that she undergo some crazy military tests. In fact, she hadn't said much of anything as he retold the events of the night before. She had simply glanced at him, nodded, and muttered something like, "What are we waiting for?" That was it. That was all the reaction she gave him, and truthfully it kind of worried him. Perhaps, she had become just as desperate and hopeless as he had.

They quietly stalked down the white corridors of Sirius headquarters, their muffled steps echoing loudly throughout the halls. They sounded muffled because security had forced them both to wear some kind of paper slippers over their shoes mumbling something about a clean environment. As they walked together both distracted by their own preoccupations, he felt a tinge of skin brush against his hand. He swallowed his unexpected reaction of surprise and pulled his hand closer to his body. His eyes shifted to the right to steal a sideways glance of the silent shrew. The corner of her eyes drooped down, and she seemed lost in whatever worries he had probably caused. He honestly wanted to say something to at least ease the awkwardness between them, but he couldn't. He had words in his mind, but no coherent thoughts.

"I don't like leaving my Glock with them." She suddenly muttered as two emerald eyes glanced to the side meeting directly with two mismatched russet ones. He rubbed the goose bumps that had traveled from his hand to the rest of his arm, and shifted his eyes forward.

"Yeah, it's a bitch, but I think I'm more annoyed at these things. They're ridiculous." He muttered glancing down at the light blue paper slippers. Faye chuckled.

"You do look pretty stupid." Her eyebrows rose playfully.

"Yeah, well, you don't pull off the look either." He smirked.

"We're here." The guard in front of them informed them. Spike glanced up at him. He had completely forgotten he was there.

"Down the hall, to the--," The man started but Spike interrupted him.

"Yes, I know." Faye glanced at him with a dark expression on her face. "Let's go." He told her and kept on walking towards their only chance.

-----

"General Michael Perkins," He smiled warmly and offered his hand. "You must be Faye Valentine," the old voice brightly stated. Faye glared at the slightly trembling hand with some kind of suspicion and finally shook it. Spike raised an eyebrow at him. The old deceitful son of a bitch knew about Faye already. He knew just about everything he needed to know, didn't he? "Sit down please." __

"You can help me?" Faye's tone was low but demanding. Spike suddenly felt like the third wheel in the conversation as both Faye and Perkins stared somberly at each other.

"I wanted to meet you personally, so I could explain to you what our specialists will do." His smile faded, and his tone turned serious like a doctor attempting to ease the phrase 'we don't know if the treatment will work; your illness is after all terminal.'

"You don't know, do you?" She raised her voice.

"Ms. Valentine, no one knows. We at least understand what it is in theory." He spoke in his military kind of reasonable tone.

"You mean no one knows but her." Silence governed the room for a while. Perkins frowned his old man frown and glanced at Faye with some hint of pity. She in turn sighed. "Okay, tell me, what was that about the specialists?"

"They're going to examine your heart, take some pictures, as well as other tests: toxicity report, blood, etc. It's going to be a long process. You will go from the neurologist to the cardiologist and so forth."

"And you don't even know if you'll be able to help?" She questioned him. Spike didn't like the fact that she would become a military lab rat either, but what choices did they have?

"You have five hours tops. I don't care how you do it." Spike commanded at Perkins, who simply smiled in return. He then turned to Faye whose eyes had widened into an indignant expression.  Crumpling her eyebrows, her lips parted as though she were about to say something with that stubborn look of refusal in her eyes. Perkins interrupted her before she even spoke.

"Very good then. Ms. Valentine, if you'll follow Dr. Javid." He instructed almost excitedly.

"I want to speak with her alone first." Spike stated. He felt Faye's eyes on him, but remained staring straight into the old man's blue eyes. Perkins glared at him with dubious eyes, obviously tired of him barking orders, but the gentle smile never faded from his lips. This time Perkins was the one in no position to refuse, and he knew it.

"Of course." Perkins signaled to a door on the right back corner of the room. "My conference room, it's secure."

Spike headed towards the dark wooden door with Faye treading at his heels. He could tell she was angry by the poignant click she made at each step. Her lips had probably pursed to a grimace, and her arms were most likely crossed beneath her chest. He tried to organize his thoughts and think of what he would say that would convince her to stay. He counted on the ten-second walk to the conference room for his mind to concoct some kind of plan, a quick one at that. She hated anything having to do with doctors since her awakening from cryogenic sleep, but she would have to deal with it.

Light spilled into the darkness as he opened the door of the small room, but the minute he stepped inside all the fluorescent lights turned on revealing a long conference table with large blue office chairs and a screen at the other end. Faye closed the door behind them, and Spike turned around to face her.

He had been wrong. She didn't have her arms crossed or a grimace on her face. Those emerald eyes glared at him with a kind of helplessness in them that jabbed at his chest. His hand had the sudden urge to reach out and touch her, comfort her, do anything to tell her it would be okay, but he stopped it.

"You can stay here Faye. We can take care of everything else." He kept his tone as low and unrelenting as possible. Faye's glare dropped to the ground.

"They aren't even sure. It's a waste of time." Her words were barely audible.

"I don't want you out there anyway. It's better if you're still and--," He stopped. He had no idea what he was saying anymore. "This is our best bet."

He breathed in and headed for the door. She needed to deal with it one way or another damn it. As he reached out to open it, he felt a tug at his black jacket, and his body froze. What was she doing? What was wrong with her? Didn't she understand her position? The urge to apologize invaded him again, but he brushed it aside like always.

"Faye," he started but his mouth closed shut the moment he felt her head press against his back. She still gripped the bottom of his jacket tightly. His heart drummed wildly at the sheer closeness of their bodies. He wanted to turn around and—

"I don't want to stay here alone." It sounded like a little child's plea. That wasn't Faye Valentine's forceful voice. That wasn't like Faye Valentine at all. "Please?"

He wanted to punch his chest and command his heart to settle down. Could she feel it? Could she feel his heart threatening to drill out of him?

"Let's go, Faye." He emphasized each word with poignant annoyance, and she let him go. They returned to the cold office of the warm General who had a questioning look on his face. Spike nodded at him and warily rolled his eyes towards Faye, who stood by his side now. With one hand on her hip, she stood upright with her chin high and a defiant glare dancing in her eyes. That was how Faye Valentine survived - by putting on a show for everyone. In that conference room had been the second time in his life she had willingly shown him her vulnerable side. The first time had been right before he left to meet with Vicious, but it had been different. She had demanded he stay back then, but this time she had almost begged.

"General Perkins." A black-suited man burst with a grave tone of voice. His green eyes stared at the General with a 'deer in headlights' look.

"I am in the middle of an important meeting." Perkins shot him a piercing glare while still keeping his kind smile. Spike wondered if it hurt to have your face display two different moods at the same time.

"It's an emergency, sir. We have a security breach." Green breathed out hard.

"Then do something about it," Perkins demandingly suggested. Green glared at him for a bit longer, and Perkins frowned. "Fine, show me the live feed right now. Pardon me." He apologized to Faye and Spike.

Green barked an order to his comm. while Perkins turned around to face the fairly large holographic screen that had turned on behind him. Several images of the facility started flashing until the screen froze on one.

A woman walked away from the camera, her long dark curls trailing behind her.

"Alyssa!" Faye yelled out before Spike or anyone else could react. The camera had a glitch, flashed off, and once the picture came back Alyssa's figure had vanished.

"Jesus Christ, seal the area off and find her!" Perkins shouted like a startled angry old man.

"We're in the process of evacuating and sealing the area. The sweep team is in their given positions already and--,"

Spike didn't hear the rest as he rushed out through the door. Faye called out to him as her boots clacked against the marble floor. He pushed some guards out of the way, and took a moment to glance back at Faye who had been keeping up with Spike's pace just fine. He couldn't let the military get to Alyssa first. Once they did, he might never see her again. Sirius would rather bury her alive before they would allow anyone access to her genius. Yes, they didn't function much differently than a syndicate. No, Perkins had no need for them if they captured the mastermind who created that nano hybrid inside Faye.

"What are you doing? Security is too high. We'll never get to her in time." Faye exclaimed the minute they stopped at one end of the hall. Spike glanced to both sides which under the white uniform of the walls appeared to be identical.

"Faye, I'd rather help her escape than let them get her." _Right_, his instincts instructed to him, and off he rushed down the hall with Faye's heels slamming against the marble floors.  They reached a left turn that awaited them with an entourage of Sirius security.

"You need to come with us," a nameless face ordered as he reached out for Spike. Spike grabbed the man by his outstretched arm, and with one fluid motion flung him to the ground. Faye dodged the falling body and prepped herself up for a fight. Both bounty hunters with fists ready fought off the five men with ease.

"God, I needed that." Faye muttered slapping dust from her hands, a gesture of a job well done.

"Let's go." Spike told her and sprinted down the hall. His heart beat wildly from the run, the fight, and the anxiety that had been building up for the past few minutes. He suddenly stopped startled by the lack of sound of Faye's heels clacking behind him. Spike whipped around to find Faye squinting while glaring a small black speaker on the corner.

"Do you hear that?" She whispered. The sound over the building's P.A. system grew louder and so did the anxious beating of Spike's heart.

_Quand__ il me prends dans ce bras_

_Il__ me parle tous bas_

_Je__ vois la vie en rose…_

Edith Piaf's muffled sultry voice rang loudly through the pallid walls. Spike's senses panicked and prickled all over his body. The romantic ballad had turned into an announcement of death for him. Faye glared at him perplexed by the bellowing voice of the French singer. That song slowly rhymed every situation into disaster. Those lyrics were a time bomb. His eyes immediately widened. _A time bomb._ Alyssa had done more than breach security.

"Faye, run! We need to get out of here." Her brows furrowed even more, but he had no time to explain to her the gut feeling he had. Spike grabbed her by the arm and yanked her towards the exit signs. They followed the green letters through the white maze until they reached a door with a guard standing vigil by it.

"This area is sealed off-," Before the guard could point his rifle at the couple, Spike kicked him and knocked him unconscious. Faye pushed open the door, which opened up to the loading docks at the back of the complex.

"We still need to get past the iron gates."

"Well, are you ready?" He gave her that half-smirk of his which his face always managed to fumble in the most unprecedented dangerous situations. Her eyes widened as she stared at the gates somewhat dejectedly.

"That's your plan?" Her lips curled to an annoyed pout. "Run head on?"

"And climb the gates." He added knowing that she had obviously figured that part out too. His smirk faded and his eyes glared ahead of him tracing their course and trying to estimate how many bullets they would have to dodge. His head leaned out while his eyes scanned all sides and caught a good amount of twenty guards scattered here and there. "Odds never looked better." The sarcasm spilled out. It was much better than the fear setting in anyway. He glanced back to Faye letting her know that the time had come. Her eyes wore a grave expression, but a decided one at that.

_…C'est toi pour moi,_

_Moi__ pour toi dans la vie_

_Il__ me l'a dit _

_M'a__ jure pour la vie…_

Spike honestly had no idea how he had missed the onrush of steps, but when the redheaded man reached them with guns in hand his instincts kicked in and his feet went with them. The man dodged the kicks before Spike realized the redhead had not aimed his guns at them yet.

"Get out, I'll cover you." He muttered his order and Spike's brow furrowed. "What hell are you waiting for? Go!" Spike wanted to ask who the hell the guy was, but he thought better of it as he heard the song nearing its end. The lanky man grabbed Faye's arm and pulled her outside focusing on the gates about one hundred feet away from them. Bullets fired off everywhere and he glanced back questioning his own trust on the man whom had so graciously offered to save them. The man still stood near the back door drawing attention away from them with his guns blazing towards the guards.

When they reached the gates, he released Faye's hand and cupped both of his to spot her. She grimaced at his gesture, but placed her boot on his hands.

"I hate this," She muttered as she grabbed his shoulders for support. She reached over to the metal gates and pulled herself up over them. "How are you going to get through?" She asked as she jumped down and stared back at him. He smirked and jumped almost missing the top of the gate and barely holding on by his fingers. He grabbed on tighter and pulled his body up.

It was when he jumped down that time stopped. The entire structure behind them exploded sending them flying a few feet and down against the ground. He hit the cement from the forceful wave behind them, and scratched his palms against the hard gravel. His ears throbbed with pain as warm liquid dripped from his nose. His face scrunched, and he felt a bit nauseous. He wiped the itching liquid now streaming past his lips to find his hand stained in red. Immediately, he searched around for Faye while trying to clear his eyes from the invading black smoke. The flames reflected on the shattered and cracked remains of the windows in the buildings in front of him. The air had become hazy and he wandered off to side wondering where Faye had landed. She couldn't have been too far. A sudden fit of coughs pushed out of his throat as the air became hazier by the second. His ears began to gradually hear sound again and he finally spotted her face through the black air as she stood up.

"Faye?" He called out to the woman who had a glossy confused shine in her eyes. "Faye, are you okay?" He came close enough so that she might hear him. She groaned and looked over her shoulder. A jagged piece of glass had lodged into her lower back.

"Fuck." She spat and then followed it with a trail of coughs. Never in a million years did he think he would see her bleeding. Sure, they had worked on pretty dangerous missions but she usually handled herself no problem or ran away before the situation got too messy. He stared at her blood with utter disgust as it had been a plague quickly spreading down her back and legs.

"We've got to get you some help." He urged and noticed that her eyes remained dazed and numb. He grabbed her chin and forced her to look at him. "Faye? You're hurt." Her brow furrowed as she blinked several times without any sign of comprehension of what he had just said.

"I can't hear you." She muttered. He sighed as his hand fell back to his side. Meanwhile, Faye attempted to take a step, but her face quickly contorted into a grimace and from her lips escaped a low grunt.

"Here." He latched her arm on her good side around him and helped her walk to the nearest alley. A couple of ideas ran through his head as to what he should do, the first being to call Jet. However, he quickly recalled that he had left his comm. link in his ship which was by now back at the Bebop like Jet had promised. As for Faye's, she had left hers with the guards along with their guns. "Fuck, just great." He muttered under his breath. Faye gripped his shoulder urging him to stop. He helped her to lean against the building wall on the alley for support while he figured out what to do. "We should take you to Celia's." He decided that it might be best, because at least Celia was only a few blocks away.

"No, I'd rather go the Bebop." Faye interjected unexpectedly.

"You can hear me now?" She frowned and nodded. "You could be seriously hurt."

"Yeah, but who needs that extra kidney and it's not like-," a gasp that transformed into a shout swallowed her words in mid-thought, and she held on to her side not too close to the wound. "We've got to get it out first."

"Hell no, not right here." He shook his head disapprovingly. Besides he was still shaking inside out from the explosion that still blazed behind them.

"Fine, I'll do it." She reached for it, but he stopped her hand while glaring gravely at her. Damn her, his heart almost leapt out of his chest. The woman was crazier than he thought.

"You may have perforated a kidney for all you know and that will just make it worse. Listen, we'll wait for the cops, I'll get a comm. and call Jet, just hold on." He exclaimed exasperatedly as he heard the sirens bellowing throughout the city.

"Well thank you, Dr. Spiegel." A cough escaped her once the sarcasm had leaked out of her voice.

"Oh darling, you really ought to listen to him for once."

Spike tensed up the minute he heard that phrase. Both his and Faye's eyes snapped at the direction of the voice, right in front of them down the alleyway. Alyssa smiled at them sardonically with her black eyes glowing in the grey mist. Spike instinctively reached for his gun only to be reminded that he didn't have one this time.

"I really did not mean for you to get hurt. Honestly," her eyes narrowed with pretend confusion, "I thought you would get out in time, but I guess that can't be helped now."

Faye always tended to react faster than he did. It was typical of her to snap before a person had even finished their sentence.

"You mother-fucking bitch! What the hell do you want? You think doing all this will bring your father back?" Alyssa's smiled remained still as ever ready for a snapshot, but her eyes menaced Faye. Didn't anyone ever teach that shrew not to shout at someone who had just blown up a building? Damn, he really wished for his Jericho right now.

"Oh!" Alyssa brought her hand to her lips as her eyes revealed some amused astonishment. "Darling, he still hasn't told you yet." Then turning to Spike, she said, "Won't you tell her at all Spiegel?" He glared at her fiercely taking his breath in deep and hard clogging his lungs with the hazy smoke. Damn him for letting his gun be confiscated and blown to bits. Shit, he wanted to say, but instead panic arose in him. Dreary panic spread through and prickled every nerve in his body.

_Shut up._

Her grin widened and he realized he had just let her revel in his fear.

_Shut up._

"Well, if you won't tell her. Then I will."

_Shut up. Shut up. SHUT UP._

His head throbbed as he alarmingly stole a glance towards Faye who had her eyes dead set on Alyssa.

"You see, the reason why I chose you Faye…"

_Fuck. Shit, Fuck._ He wanted to lunge at her, slit her throat, choke her, punch her out, something, but he couldn't move. No, Spike the-idiot Spiegel could not move.

"… was because, well, he's in love with you." He remained still, and Faye's eyes narrowed. "You're the spark in his life." Alyssa laughed that annoying pretentious giggle of hers. "Now isn't that ironic. You sparked him back to life and you'll spark nine million people to their death." She tilted her head to the side and smirked. He couldn't take it anymore. He'd kill her right there with his bare hands. His body tensed and moved forward threatening to lunge at her, but she quickly cocked her gun at him. He hadn't even had the chance to notice where she had pulled it from. She pointed it at him, and then slowly aimed it down at Faye's wounded side. "I don't think so."

"I-," Faye grunted. Jesus, he had already forgotten Faye still stood there listening to this shit. "I am glad your father…" She paused to catch her breath which seemed to be running out a little too fast. "That your father isn't alive to see the shit you've become." It took a lot of strength to spit those words at her.

Alyssa's eyes immediately darkened at the mentioning of her father as if suddenly a black emotion had been released within her and now poured out through her glare. Spike's eyes focused on her for the first time, her lose shirt, her black pants and the dark circles under her eyes under a layer or two of powder. Her lips were purple kind of pink and her hands polka-dotted with black, blue, and green bruises. Her dark eyes would flash with resentment, then confusion. The gun trembled tighter in her hand as her lips pursed with anger. She was just about ready to shoot Faye, and a chaotic rage resonated around her. Spike had no idea what he would do, but every muscle in his body was ready to do something.

"No, not this way, Faye." She calmly interjected her own anger. A blanket of composure had suddenly wrapped around her as a sinister smile danced its way across her lips. "Bon chance, cherie." She turned around, and Faye reached to grab her. The second she did her hands instead fell to her side as a desperate shout escaped from her lips.

----

Jet's face paled the moment he jumped off the cockpit of the Hammerhead and saw Spike holding a limp Faye in his arms. A small black-red pool had stained the ground at his feet. He stared back at Jet with a sour, yet glad expression although dreading the fact he would have to explain himself to his partner. God, he had fucked up too much in the last twenty-four hours.

"What the fuck happened?!" Jet rushed, then walked, then rushed again towards him as if his own feet had no clue as to where they were headed. Spike had gracefully borrowed a comm. from one the patrol units that suddenly swarmed the Sirius headquarters. Most of the officers were too busy to know what had really happened, which gave him the perfect opportunity to contact Jet.

"Corner of Juno and 70th, in the back alley, hurry she's hurt." He said before running back to where he had left Faye Valentine barely standing. Jet had probably been worried to death knowing him, but it's not like the former cop hadn't been used to it. Spike had never been tactful about anything, and now was the least likely time to start.

"Jesus Christ." Jet muttered as his hands flailed about Faye and her injury. "Why aren't you rushing her to the damn hospital?"

Spike's eyes narrowed at him already feeling the twinge of jealousy returning to his chest.

"She insisted, more like demanded that I call you instead. She only passed out a few minutes ago. The stupid brat threatened to rip it out if I took her anywhere else." He spoke briefly, no pauses, very solemn tone. Mismatched eyes stared at worried dark ones with a suspicious intensity.

"Goddamn it, stubborn woman." Jet muttered pressing his hand against her forehead. Spike's twinge grew to a hook and then a kick.

"Jet?" Faye's eyes squinted open. "Take me home."

"Yeah, you're fine Faye." Jet reassured her, and she slipped back into unconsciousness.

It took them a couple of minutes to figure out how to most comfortably position her inside the Hammerhead in order to take her back to the Bebop. They finally agreed on an arrangement in which Spike sat in the seat while holding her propped up and assuring the piece of bloodied glass wouldn't slam against anything.

As they flew back to the Bebop, Spike found himself staring at Faye, her face so quiet and pale. Her lips were a little dry, but still had that small hint of pink in them. That pink soft complexion that he couldn't help but stare at, which suit him just fine. He'd think about anything but the warm blood in his hands. He needed to forget that warm guilt dripping onto his skin.

The silky texture of her skin awakened his suppressed emotions once again. He tried constantly to rip them from his mind and shred them into little nothings, but instead they molded into pieces of him which he couldn't discard. He'd then bunch them up and hide them somewhere, anywhere as dark as he could find, and locked it so tight, air-shut in order to asphyxiate it.

Stupid Faye Valentine, who dripped thick as honey into his soul and left him with sweet unwanted thoughts and sweet unwanted guilt. Stupid Faye Valentine whom he had left alone only to later find out she made him feel alive and overwrought with shreds of silky emotions. He hated her so much, but not as much as that jealousy burning in him. No, not as much as this insane need to save her. Not as much as he hated Alyssa. Not as much as he hated himself. No, not as fucking much as he hated the ironic fact that his hate had warped out of shape and into love.

_He's in love with you._

He wanted to die.

He wanted the earth to swallow him and keep him six feet under damn it!

That was all he had ever wanted anyway.

-----

"It's not too deep," Jet frowned as he examined the wound. He had placed towels on the yellow couch and laid her there on her side. With the movement of one hand, he signaled Spike to give him the first aid kit without ever removing his eyes from Faye's red back.

"Shouldn't we call someone?" He suggested as he handed the white box to Jet. Spike found himself grimacing. "She looks like she's lost a lot of blood." Jet flicked the box open and removed a pair of metal pliers out of it. With the delicate calculated precision that he managed his Bonsai, he slowly pulled the jagged glass which turned out to be much smaller than it originally looked.

"She'll be fine. We'll manage." Jet stated as he discarded the glass on a towel and proceeded to take out some more supplies. Somehow Spike realized that the 'we' in Jet's sentence had excluded him and the jealousy rose again.

"What the fuck? That's not good enough."

"Not good enough?" Jet's voice resonated with calm anger. He pressed a piece of gauze against the wound and began cleaning it with the disinfectant liquid he had. "This isn't what is threatening her life right now, Spike." He had said it so slowly, pressing with guilt. Like a fucking Catholic—mea culpa, mea culpa—was what Spike had been reduced to and in front of this all-demanding priest no less dressed as a self-righteous former cop.

"Jesus Jet, what the fuck kind of self-righteous attitude is that? It's not like I meant for her to get hurt." These were the times that reminded Spike of the little pet peeves he hated about Jet. His stupid cop attitude was one of them. Jet had the right, and Spike, well; he damn near owned the wrong.

"Faye-Faye is even more hurt." Ed had said sadly before returning to her work. She had taken the vid-screen of the Alpha-Catch, and now proceeded to hook-up her tomato to the contraption while Ein's little snout served as the holding hook for all her cables. He wondered if that was how Ed coped with things by being drowned in little technical jabbers and miles of wires.

"Damn it," Jet muttered as he dressed the wound. "Just tell me what the hell happened." Good old Jet, always patient and keen to ignore Spike's idiotic outbursts.

How did he cope with things? Spike didn't cope with anything. He simply forgot. He learned to forget. But how could he forget something happening right then? In the present anyway?

"We were there and Alyssa just appeared. The place went ballistic and we barely escaped before she blew it up. She got injured because of the explosion. There was debris everywhere."

"No Spike, this is still because of you." Wait a minute, had The Jet really said that? Had he just come out and said that?

This wasn't a dream. He was alive.

He wanted to die.

But he couldn't. He didn't want to, no, it had nothing to do with death. He felt like dying, but he didn't want to. He wanted to live. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to be with her To save her. God, he wanted to so much to save her. What hell was wrong with him anyway? Where had this come from?

"I know it is. I'm not trying to say otherwise."

Yeah, Jet had the right. He had fucked up and dragged the entire Bebop into this, dragged her into this. After all she had been through, if one person in this damn insignificant system in the lonely branch of some faraway galaxy known as the Milky Way—what kind of name is that anyway?—deserved to live her life free of his bullshit, it was Faye Valentine.

"Just pull your shit together. You're falling apart, Spike. Do it for Faye at least, if nothing else to you matters."

Faye Valentine, how he loved the drive-me-to-insanity ring to that name so much. He would say the name over and over in his head until he didn't know what it meant anymore. The grand savior of a thought hit him so suddenly. All of it had to be insanity. Julia was insanity. Faye was insanity. No better explanation existed than the fact that all women evil, angelic, and ordinary had driven him one more step to dive into the never-ending pit of madness—a hard corrosive madness that rusted in the very cognitive workings of his mind.

But damn it, the word ordinary lingered in his thoughts, a tomboy kind of ordinary dressed in yellow with short violet hair and bright red lips. Yeah, that real kind of ordinary.

He wanted to feel something real so badly.

He wanted to feel Faye Valentine.

------

In the two hours she had been unconscious, Spike had left to find her some non-scarring ointment for dressing her wound and some tranquilizers as directed by Jet. But not until after Jet insisted he clean himself up and bandage his scratched hands. When he returned, he found Faye sitting on the yellow seat across from the couch with few cords extending from patches attached to her chest and back. Ed typed at her keyboard some more after adjusting a cable or two connecting the Alpha-Catch screen to her computer.

"You're back." Jet commented, occasionally glancing towards Spike and away from Ed's busy movements. Spike dropped the meds on the yellow couch and plopped down glaring at the whole spectacle. Faye glanced towards him briefly, her emerald eyes denoting nothing in particular. At least nothing that Spike could decipher. He had grown so clumsy with feelings and his own intuition lately anyway.

"What's going on?" He asked wondering if anyone would care to answer him.

"It's ready!" Ed joyfully shouted and pressed a button. "We're scanning to find the bomb Spike-person. Ed will solve this problem."

_Yeah, that would be just great. A crazy girl and her dog save the world._

"I hope this works Ed." Faye said in her familiar doubtful tone.

"How are you feeling?" Spike asked her.

"Could be better." She responded glaring at the vid-screen which would occasionally flash with snow.

"Brought it for the pain." Spike picked up the pill bottle and stood up. "It's not alcohol but it'll do." He said, walking over to her and dropping the bottle on her lap. She glanced up at him and nodded, then turned back to the screen.

"It's picking up a signal!" Ed exclaimed and the rest narrowed their eyes at the screen. It had suddenly turned black and had a small flashing red dot on it.

"What's that?" Jet asked rubbing his temples in confusion.

"That is Faye-Faye, and now to find the bomb." Ed uttered and typed at the screen as a small green grid formed. "That's the city." The blinking red dot was near the middle, shifted up in the upper left of the grid.

Spike shut his eyes forcing them to blink and wondering if he had just imagined it. Ein barked fiercely at screen. Faye and Jet were looking at each other in confusion, and even Ed had muttered one of her infamous but misunderstood "nyah's." The screen had definitely flashed entirely green. It hadn't been his imagination. He narrowed his eyes on it again, waiting for the next flash.

"Ed, what the hell was that?" Faye's voice shuddered with confusion.

"Ed will slow down the signal and see…" She tapped some keys here and there. "And there." She pressed her last key with extra emphasis. Spike's eyes widened, and his breath caught in his throat. He hoped to God, if there was a God, that what he feared wouldn't be true. To his dismay, he was about to find out he was right.

The screen hadn't flashed all green again. Instead, once the red dot blinked, a kind of domino effect undulated throughout the rest of the grid. Small green ripples emerged all over different places that pinged off each other and to the next.

"What is this?" Jet had stammered to the second word and finally the third.

"Ed—uh—well," The girl stood frozen in front of the screen just like the rest of them. Spike's heart choked in his throat. "I'm sorry." That was the lowest Spike had ever heard the girls' voice go. "You see, there isn't just one bomb. There's one hundred and thirty-five of them spread all over the city. It's nearly impossible to track since there's so many."

He could have maybe stopped one bomb_._

_But one hundred and thirty-five of them?_

---------------

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. What the hell is going to happen now? Well, this is when you start paying attention to all the little details because this is when time becomes more crucial by the minute. Anyway, I hope you guys liked it. I _am_ going somewhere with this. It does have an ending, but there's still more than day left so don't worry. There's still more to come.

By the way, the Alpha-Catch is that thing the used in "Sympathy for the Devil" to look into the mind of the guy in the wheelchair. Just in case you couldn't remember.

Again, a special thanks to Tenko, and Kajouka for all their hard beta-ing work on this chapter. A special shout-out goes out to Kaj, because she worked on this even when she was sick. :D Thanks ever so much for all your work!

And above all, thanks to all my readers and reviewers. I love you guys!


	14. Interlude

Author notes will be done in my bio from now on. Next chapter of BP should be out soon. I love you all.

**Breaking Point**

**Interlude: Pass the Hours**

_Click-click: tick-tick_

_Clock snips time in two_

_Lap of rain_

_In the drain pipe_

_Two o'clock___

_And never you.___

_…To bed and sleep_

_And tearless creep_

_The formless seconds_

_Minutes__ hours_

_And never you_

_The raindrops weep_

_And never you_

_And tick-tick,_

_ tick-tick,_

_ pass the hours._

_-From the Journals of Sylvia Plath_

I've done crazy shit all my life. I can't remember a time when I didn't somehow slip out of the worst situation possible, and ended with a cynical smile and a cigarette on my lips. Nothing could ever limit me or hurt me. I was invincible, and I had no doubt in my mind that I would always be. Yeah, most people feared death, but not me. No matter how hard I tried to die, I just goddamn wouldn't.

The year 2052 had been long lost and forgotten along with dozens of memories I hardly cared to retain inside me. Not because they caused pain and trauma, or any of that. They were useless to me, and as I lived my life they just somehow blended into the background—into me. I got so fucking angry then. I tore up everything at home when they told me to collect my belongings, perhaps because I knew I no longer had a home. I think I was angry at my parents. I was angry at them because they had left me. How dare they die and leave me here? For some reason at eight years old it never occurred to me that other people did this. That the bastards from one of the many syndicates out there caused a bullet storm that swallowed my parents and along with their lives, and any decent remnants of mine. I felt so angry for so long, and then I realized the coward I had been. My mother—she pushed me off to the side when she heard the shots and my body smacked against some car. I was so damn scared, so I slid under ignoring the smell of gas and mud, and covered my ears with my hands. I pushed my palms so hard against my head fearing my brain would implode from the explosive screams and loud bullets grazing everywhere.

Everything shook, my lungs, my heart, my arms and legs, but my eyes they trembled so fiercely I thought they would drill out of my sockets. I shut them so tight that the tears just slid down my face. I wasn't crying. My lids were just pressing so damn hard so my eyes wouldn't move at all. It must have taken me a long time to snap out of it. I didn't hear the sirens or feel the warmth of the blood until my entire body was soaked in it. When I opened my eyes and saw the red, everything became so cold.

The first thing to hit my gaze was my mother's bright blue eyes. They had become the color of ice, and they stared right at me with deep black pupils as thin as needles. Blood dribbled out of her mouth and nose, and I realized that the puddle I laid in was hers. I immediately tried to move away, but my feet and hands and head would not move. I was stuck like that staring at my mother's haunting expression contorted to this ghastly shape as if she had choked on her blood in mid-scream.

I remained there numb from every dendrite to every blood cell, just frozen in that moment, until they removed my mother's body. I later learned that my father had died a few feet away from her attempting to protect us, and she been shot in the back as she ran away once they had killed him.

"Do you have any other family?"

People in white had cleaned me. I reeked of alcohol and iodine.

"Cousins, brothers, uncles, aunts, grandparents?"

I couldn't feel my hands or my face.

"Anyone at all with whom you can stay with for the night?"

I got to my house and ripped through everything. I tore up the posters on the wall, broke vases and ornaments, and punched—and punched—and punched through all the pictures on the walls, desks, stands, and everywhere else.

"Stop it! You have to grow up now. It's hard, but you have to grow up now."

Angela, that was the social worker's name. She put me in this piece of shit home full of kids ten times angrier than me. All my parents ever did was leave me—die without me. Some of those kids' parents had raped the child out of them and killed them into adulthood. Yeah, they were so much angrier than I ever had it in me to be.

"_Sources now say that the skirmish was caused by the rivaling syndicates: the White Tigers and the Red Dragons, though no statement has been issued by the police. Five people were killed and two injured due to this incident._"

Bastard reporters called it a skirmish. People don't die in a skirmish. That's a word you use for a fucking fight between the neighbor kids, or in some stupid little bar. It doesn't imply guns, or blood, or dying mid-way through a scream.

I think I'm dying. I think I've been ever since then, but I can never quite get there. It's as though I'm untouchable, and every time it hurts more. And every time I can feel it even less.

Shit happens, doesn't it?

About three years passed until I finally decided to get the hell out of that orphan home. I was starting to absorb the pain of others and the bitterness slowly. I had no idea who my parents were anymore. I wondered if they had beat me like Chris' dad, or if they had thrown me out like Yumi's.

So I ran away and found my way into Annie's. I don't know really how it happened. It just somehow did. She found me in some corner and lifted me up, and I weighed nothing. As light as feather, she said.

She let me work at her store and stay there. I have no idea what made her take to me, but she did. I was no easy kid though. I never talked to her. I never smiled or told her thank you. I just worked and went out. She never knew what the hell I did. Smoking pot, or playing billiards for money. She knew none of that, and I never felt guilty for not telling her.

It was an afternoon in October I think when I passed by for about the thousandth time of this JKD training place. I hadn't noticed it before, but I stood by the large window and watched those kids just fighting with each other so orderly it made sick. So I scrounged around to find a big enough rock, and as I lifted my hand to lunge it at the glass someone's hand grabbed me from behind and twisted my arm to my back.

"You shouldn't do that."

"Get the fuck off me!" I yelled and he released my arm after the stone fell from my hand. I whipped around to face my enemy only to encounter an old man. "Mind your own business old man!" I thought of myself as real witty then. I lunged at him with all I had, and I missed. I went straight for him with fist extended, and I just missed him. I went at it again and again, and he would just flow from side to side avoiding completely, hardly moving. In the many lunges, and kicks I threw he managed to trip me. I literally laid there with a half-baffled and half-fearful expression.

"How old are you?" His gray eyes examined my limbs carefully as if he were planning to dissect me or chop me into pieces.

"What's it to you?" I spat, but I still wasn't ready to stand up with his body looming over me. His glare focused on my eyes, staring right through as if he had now moved on to studying my organs and could see it all through my pupils. "I'm fourteen."

"Are you in school?" His eyes kept still, unblinking and filled an unreadable intensity. I shrugged in response.

He nodded as if to himself, clasped both hands, and turned around. He stopped right before entering, and without glancing back at me he said, "Follow me."

It wasn't a request, and I glanced to both sides trying to decide in which direction I should run. The left would have been easiest because it would lead me to the closest alley, but he spoke before I even got up.

"Don't."

I don't what made me follow him. He didn't threaten me. I didn't feel threatened, but I just got on my feet and entered the dojo after him. He made me sit down in a corner and watch the kids fight with each other. They all momentarily stared at me like I was an abominable sight blackening their white pure-bred faces. I entered with my ripped jeans, and dirty t-shirt, I probably smelled like hell not having taken a shower for days, but I smirked at them. Their eyes widened and they turned to their master, who just nodded. One nod, and it sent them all back to whatever punch, kick, or maneuver they had been doing. The whole time they pretended that I had been an obscenity momentarily muttered, and quickly forgotten.

I just sat and watched their milky faces red from the thrusts and sweat. I wanted to snicker at their calculated movements, but I reserved it not minding being ignored.

I don't know how it happened, but the old man went off somewhere and left me alone with the prissy boys. One of them remembered my existence, blonde with green eyes, and a duplicitous smile that resonated from his perfectly straight teeth.

"Hey you, what are you doing here? Out in the front begging or something?"

I think my mouth must have slightly parted, because I was so damn shocked that he actually thought that to be a witty remark of some sort. The rest of the boys stopped what they were doing and turned to look at me.

"What, you can't talk?" Boy wonder chuckled glancing around him like he had just told the greatest joke and was waiting for a response of approval. The rest just stared.

I smirked.

"What are you smirking about, you little shit?" His smile didn't fade still, white pearly teeth shining like the Cheshire cat's. It stayed silent for about a minute, and I could tell he began feeling embarrassed like the idiot he was. "Answer me, you little fuck." He came over a kicked me right in the calf like a stubborn three year old.

I stood up, my smirk fading, and my eyes narrowing.

"What you think you can take me on?" He laughed, and a couple of others chuckled. "Please." He pointed to his red belt like I knew what the hell that meant. I walked towards him, the little spoiled shit, letting him know that of course I could take him. And he just lunged at me, arm extended forward, so damn fast, but I had seen them dodging it enough to know how to avoid it. So I swayed my body to the side and grabbed him his fist and flipped him with his own force to the ground.

"Mike, get up." The old man came in from within a room in dojo. He signaled me to go inside it, and I waited there for half an hour. He finished his lesson and then sent them off. He came inside, and observed me for what seemed like hours.

"Where did you learn to do that?" He asked me.

"What, that earlier? You showed it to me." I shrugged, and he smiled.

"Come here. I will teach you, four to six in the morning every day. Twice as long on weekends. Do you know Japanese or Mandarin?" I shrugged again. I had a learned a little from the signs all around us. You just eventually picked up some phrases and symbols, but not much worth anything. "Then you'll learn some."

It started every day like that, and to keep the deal I had to start going to school. I hated it, but the fighting in the morning made up for it. That's how I learned everything I know, from an old man, Master Ling.

I had never liked my life in retrospect, even when I was in happy blissful middle class land with my parents. But those two years I spent mastering JKD, it had been a good time for me. I probably failed one class the whole time, which was an all-time record for me. What do they say? You know that old cliché that goes "Nothing good ever lasts." I understand it now, because it's true.

Truth and reality are not easy concepts to deal with. I think that is why I have receded into myself, into numbness that fails recognize anything anymore. I think that's why I understood Vincent, and why Vicious and I differed so strongly. When we were young, we were merely gangsters. Then we became killers, and finally demons. What got it all started was his death, Master Ling's.

There was no practical or actual reason of why he died. That stirred me, and it hurled me to a depth within myself I would never return from—that lack of reason behind death. It targeted people randomly, as if daily it would do some computerized or technical survey of people left alive and bam—the millionth and ten, the two millionth fifth, sixth, and seventh of people alive would die today.

A bunch of little pissing gangster kids surrounded him, tried to beat him up, and of course failed miserably. To spite him, two of the kids whose brothers belonged to a syndicate got called upon, and a sniper took him out from atop some roof of some bank. A sniper. Jesus Christ, like he was some fucking prime minister. No, he was just an old man.

That's when I decided guns were quite useful too. I disappeared for a while. Freelanced my way around, mainly composed of stealing, bullying, and a couple of killings—self-defense and all. I was the real fucked up angst teen of the posters. A middle class boy whom life fucked over, and he ended up on the streets, the next psycho or serial killer.

Fate had something else in mind for me. I had some money, and I knew I owed Annie. I don't know what kind of Catholic guilt seeped into me, but it spread like malaria inciting some feverish and itching anxiety. I headed that way with a couple of thousand woolongs in my back pocket. I spotted a black car with windows to match the paint job coming around the corner street of where Annie's shop was located. I had seen it circle around me once already. At the stop they slowed down and drove almost slower than I walked. They parked on the side of the road, and I went inside of the liquor store, two doors away from Annie's. I watched them; my sentinel eyes wary of a death omen headed my way.

An Asian man in his early forties, dressed in a suit and red tie, exited Annie's gun store and the black car's wheels spun with a screech. My impulses took over and a shot of adrenaline heated my neck. I whipped out my new Jericho as I saw the long mouth of a rifle protrude from a window cracked open.

I shot at the wheels, and the rifle pelted a bullet that shattered the left window of the gun shop. Men sprung from this dark blue car parked on the front and surrounded the Asian man, and started shooting back. I ran and stretched my hand aiming at the back window. I shot three times, and it shattered. The other men took all the shooters out.

Annie's bulky form emerged once the street had gone silent, and she took one look at me and damn near screamed.

"Spike!" She recognized me, as if it had only been yesterday that I had left.

"Is that your name?" The Asian man in the suit asked me. The other men in the black soldier suits glared at me. I thought Annie had made friends with a politician, and later on I learned he was close enough to that. "You're a good shot." I put my gun back behind me.

"Thanks." I muttered, and one of the soldiers lowered his head to the man's ears and whispered something. The man nodded.

"I would like to talk to you, Spike. My name is Mao Yenrai."

My life would never be the same again. I would go from chaotic petty thefts and kills, to organized and calculated murder, and so much more. But by then, I was already numbed to my death. I would become one of the men that killed my parents, my master, and me. And when I look back, the reason I gave myself for doing all that was to pass the hours.


	15. 34:26:05

Chapter notes in my profile. Enjoy.

**---34:26:05---**

How long had they all been paralyzed just like that? Ed sat slumped against her tomato with Ein's head drooping on her lap. Jet had stumbled down to the couch with a hand over his mouth and his brown eyes glazed with darkness. As for Faye, she sat still with her pale porcelain face fixed at the screen as if waiting for some sign that everything had been joke, a hoax, or a lie. Spike Spiegel remained stunned for while. His eyes dwindled from corner to corner, and face to face. Everything had suddenly turned surreal, like a bad TV show, or old twentieth century drama. His senses had dulled so drastically that he thought the silence meant that he had gone deaf. He began to register again that no one's mouth was moving, but he couldn't comprehend why he couldn't hear the fan above him. He glanced up, and realized the fan had stopped moving too. The damn thing had probably broken a while ago.

Bombs. Not bomb. His mind reminded him. His senses kept still.

He couldn't stay immobile anymore like he had gone back to his coma. A finger moved, and then the whole hand. It slowly reached into his pocket, and pulled out the little box of relief he had forgotten he had. Carefully, he plucked out one of the last two cigarettes, and placed it on his mouth. His other hand moved too, and dug into the jacket pocket.

Clack!

The silence trembled and broke. The click of a Zippo lighter pinged off the metal walls to every ear, and finally as Spike lit his cigarette, he realized he wasn't deaf after all.

Faye whipped her head around the second the scent of tar and nicotine spread out from Spike's mouth. Her eyes glowed heavy with green, lighting up the room obscenely.

"What the fuck are you doing?" She yelled and used her pale arm to propel herself from her seat. There was a momentary flinch, when the green went dark, and she stopped herself from lunging at Spike. She held onto the chair for dear life, because whatever she had to say was worth the pain she inflicted on her own body. That was Faye Valentine for you.

"Faye, sit down." Jet immediately stood up with arms slightly outstretched ready to catch her the moment her balance wavered out of control. Faye waved her arm at him with her eyes never losing focus of Spike.

Spike stared past her, mainly preoccupied with his cigarette, because the truth was everything had shut down. His emotions, his logic, and his entire nervous system had taken the brunt of the napalm accident inside him caused by panic and desperation joining arms with shock in a coup d'etat that he had definitely foreseen. Spiegel had been blown to cinders and at ground zero was the empty shell of someone that once used to be, or never was—no one was sure anymore and least of all him.

All he could think at that moment was that sometime somewhere he had experienced this before.

"What the hell's behind me?" She turned her head to peek from the corner of her eye, and then whipped back to him. "Julia again?" Her sarcasm was more evident than her anger. Spike now stared at her, simply because that name somehow brought him closer to that moment he kept trying to remember. "Well, Julia's dead Spike. And soon the whole damn city will be too." Spike wasn't really listening like he ought to, but he just had to remember. God, what was it? It was nagging and tugging at him. Faye scoffed between clenched teeth. "But no, look at you. Mister nonchalance-and-I could careless. Do you think that you're the only one who's suffered? I've been treated like shit ever since I woke up. Like I don't matter. I'm just this stupid girl woken up in the wrong millennium. Who the hell do you think you are? I don't need this. I thought I needed you back," She pointed with stern index finger at the 'you.' "For everything to return to normal," a rueful pause, "and every time I let you get to me."

Her eyes glared harder at him, and he responded with deep stare under furrowed eyebrows which sent her wild with realization, as if suddenly she understood him, the situation, Alyssa, everything. "But I don't need you." She finally added. "I don't want anything to do with you." Her eyes, once emerald, became opaque and unreadable. Her rage subsided, and she stood inert taking in the shock of her numbness. She had implied that he could understand everything she uttered frantically, but he couldn't. He didn't understand why he was alive, why he had fallen in love with her. Truthfully, he was slowly starting to forget it all. He had begun to forget pieces of himself, and pieces of the people in his life. He had forgotten the emotions that only moments ago abated inside his body, and racked his mind ruthlessly until his instincts had no choice but to deaden completely.

But as he absorbed Faye's numb stare, her eyes became a mirror reflecting that which he was forgetting within himself. Somewhere deep within Spike an emotion stirred followed quickly by another one.

"So is this what you wanted?" She soughed, addressing the damp air, or maybe herself.

Soon enough his emotions responded to her numbness, and they wriggled their way from the heat of the explosion still crackling against his chest.

"Faye, stop it, you're scaring the kid." Jet spoke softly and wearily.

"Is this why you came back?" He glanced at her realizing that she had come so close to him that he could feel her warm breath damping his face and the trigger inside her palpitating against his body.

It hit him then. The last time everything had exploded within him was when Julia died. He had lost everything within him completely, and he only wished to finish everything that had begun it all—Vicious, his syndicate, the red, the black, and those ruthless dragon teeth. But this wasn't the case this time. Faye still lived, and as long as she lived he couldn't let himself become that again. He didn't want to be that hollow skin of a human being again.

"Faye," He called to her but she kept spinning. The red on the bandages on her side had spread at an alarming rate. "Stop it, you're hurting yourself."

She halted, her body slumping forward then back as if she had been hit by a momentary flux of inertia. She turned around with full-on fury to face Spike.

"I refuse to pay for what you did. Find someone else to die for you Spike, because I won't." She punched his chest, and he gripped her forcefully by the arm. She glanced at him with gut-wrenching eyes, desperate and spiteful.

"Let me go." She demanded in a sunken tone. "I can't look at you anymore." Her eyes darted away from him. The frigidity of her voice had soaked him and the cold dug into him one prickling ice needle at a time. He plucked his fingers off her arm one by one until finally his arm fell to his side. Her back receded from his view slowly, then up the stairs, and finally it disappeared entirely into the hall. The steps echoed through the stiff silence she left behind her, until the door to her quarters slid shut.

Spike's eyes had photographed that disillusioned numb look lodged in her eye, and his eardrums had recorded every pounding decibel of her frigid voice. They would remain in constant replay for a long time.

Ed suddenly made a squealing noise, which rescued Spike from his thoughts.

"Ed?" Jet had a mixture of confusion, weariness, and anxiousness all bundled up under his eyes.

"The bounty has just been increased to 300 million just like for spooky-ooky Vincent!" She waved her arms around in ghost-like manner.

Jet shook his head, and sat back down. "Thanks Ed."

The recording of Faye's voice screeched to a halt. "Wait. Ed, what did you say?"

"The bounty's increased to 300 million." Jet restated somewhat annoyed that Spike was interested in money right then.

"No, the second part." Spike waved his hand dismissively. "Vincent." He muttered to himself. The moment of shut down Spike had granted his body sparked something useful in him. As his mind, blood cells, and adrenaline began restarting, a new path he hadn't considered before stretched before him. He dug through his memories and found something that he almost wanted to scold himself for having forgotten.

Spike turned around towards Ed.

"Ed, I need you to make a copy of the specs of this thing. Everything." Spike instructed and Jet glared at him.

"Yessir," Ed saluted with smile, an excitement on her face and a sense of assurance that all efforts had not been exhausted.

"What is it?" Jet asked immediately.

"Do you remember Vincent?" Jet's mouth parted slightly at Spike's question.

"What does that have to do with anything?" His eyes furrowed with annoyance.

"Remember how we spread the anti-nano machine cure to everyone. We should all have it, especially Faye." Spike decided to explain himself for once. It would kill time while Ed got him what he needed.

"Yeah, he gave her the cure himself." Jet had told him about it. Faye would never confess something like that to Spike.

"An antibody against nano machines. I'm going to follow a lead. I want you to keep looking for Alyssa. She'll be our last resort."

"Ready!" Ed shouted and threw Spike a transparent case with a silver disc inside.

"What about Faye?" Jet asked.

"If she becomes a problem, sedate her." Spike answered monotonously, his brown eyes dead set on Jet's. His partner simply stared back, half in awe, and the other half almost disgusted by his cold suggestion. It was all Spike could do to keep them together, and working. If he lost control like Faye, or lost his ability to stomach surprises like Jet, they'd be done for.

He had a new plan, which involved a visit to Moroccan street.

-----

A cold hush had settled on Moroccan street, softly lingering above the few people meandering around it. Only the jewelry, legume, and rug sellers remained with their small shops open and their faces fearful and weary. Spike felt like hell as he walked through the barren medina. His arms ached, and his body rolled inward into him, pushing into his chest. He rejected the tiredness, and instead focused on his brand new goal. He glanced around wondering who he could ask first. A woman in her black chador pulled on a little boy whispering 'yalla,' while a man quickly handed a couple of bills to a tomato vendor. They wouldn't talk to him today. All these dark eyes had grown suspicious and reserved. He continued walking until he reached the long stone steps at the end of the small medina. The city was a mirage, hues of purples, grays, and reds against the blue mid-afternoon background. It made him sick to look at the city.

"I hate this, don't you? This quiet." Julia's voice emerged with the whistling of the wind. She descended to a step and glanced at the city. She wore her long overcoat, the one that she had left with Annie to cover her up that day. Julia's pale hands tugged at it, pulling it closer to her. Her blonde locks fluttered with the wind, and Spike could almost swear he could smell lilacs, or some kind of flowery shampoo like that.

"I try to imagine it. The whole thing flattened, and I just can't." She added and then met eyes with Spike. "It looks so peaceful, like a still life, frozen in time."

"Allah." He heard Rashid's voice echo form behind him. Spike turned to face him, and Julia had already disappeared as if only her voice had been there. Rashid shook his head in disbelief. "Spike Spiegel." Even with few people scattered on the street, Rashid still managed to appear from nowhere. Maybe everything was part of his rather vivid imagination.

"I have a question." Spike eyes scanned the area quickly, a paranoid precaution he had grown accustomed to ever since Alyssa appeared.

"There's hardly anyone out today, so not much business. Usually, at mid-afternoon people are out and about, greeting, buying, rushing through in tumults. Even the distant sound of traffic seems so light in comparison to most days." Rashid commented glaring towards the city, and then turned to Spike. "The people of Alba are shaken. After those two explosions, the mayor has recommended people stay in their homes. And that's why you're here, isn't it?"

Spike sighed, glad that Rashid's guilt-pressing stare hid behind his dark glasses. Spike felt around his pockets for a cigarette, and soon learned he had left his precious last few on the Bebop.

"I know who's behind this, but I need your help." Spike leaned on the rail of the stairs, and dug in his pocket for the disc. "I need you to look at this." Rashid took the disc in his hand, examined it with a skeptical expression. He lifted his head to Spike again.

"I don't think I know anything that may help you." Rashid extended his hand out to give him back the disc.

"Dr. Mendelo, you owe me." Spike stated sternly and Rashid's shoulders just hunched along with a rueful frown on his lips.

The doctor nodded pulling his hand back. "Follow me."

Rashid led him past a few shops on the street, and into this small alley Spike hadn't noticed before. They entered the back door to room, which the light revealed to have dangling carpets, and vases, and a canopy bed with dozens of pillows ranging from burgundy to orange and gold. On a corner, there was a table with small computer. Rashid turned it on, and placed the disk inside. While he read the contents of the disc, he instructed Spike to look inside a chest next to the bed. He said Spike would find a wooden box with clove cigarettes in there.

Spike inhaled the clove, not his favorite kind of cigarette, but it was better than nothing. The aroma relaxed his anxiousness a bit, and he sat shifting uncomfortably in the bed while Rashid sifted through the information on the disc. He hoped to all hell that he would be able to tell him something.

"Maktub." Twenty minutes and four cigarettes later, Rashid rose from his chair and headed towards the bed.

"What?" Spike tried to recapture what he said, thinking he maybe misheard him.

"A persons' destiny is written by God," Rashid lifted his hand and placed his index finger on his forehead. "Here. It is written on the forehead—your entire life." His hand fell against his side and he glanced back at his monitor. "So in Islam we don't ponder why things went one way or another, it is destiny. It is written." Spike remained attentive for part of it, but soon grew impatient with his sooth-saying. He was worse than Jet.

"The Membranic Trace," Spike paused to glare at Rashid, who in turn stood still and attentive assuring Spike that he understood what the Mtrace was. "It's inside someone I know. I need to stop it, or she—," Spike stopped himself. He didn't want to have tell anyone else about Faye. "Do you know this technology? Why won't the anti-nano machines work against it?" Rashid shook his head.

"The nano agents have transformed in a way to imitate the tissue around them. If your data is correct, then this is a new evolution of the technology. The nano machine inserted in this woman could have been a cell engineered like a machine, with a cpu if you could think of it that way. It replicated itself and constructed a device exactly as it was instructed. It's the perfect weapon." Rashid added with a somewhat amused or ironic tone of voice. Either way it was enough to piss off Spike. Rashid must have seen the dissatisfaction in Spike's face, and frowned.

"This woman must be without a destiny to begin with, to have one carved in her heart instead." Rashid took off his glasses, and his olive green eyes focused on Spike. "A long time ago, terrorists were simply fanatics of their ideals, extremists they called them. They believed in their warped form of religion and code so fiercely that nothing could deter them from destroying millions of lives. Terrorism has always existed, and now they say that it has evolved into something else."

Spike didn't understand what Rashid planned to tell him, or not tell him for that matter, but he listened attentively anyway awaiting some answer. An answer that would explain Alyssa, his life, Faye, and everything else that no one had bothered to address.

"Now, acts of terror are committed by people seeking to be more powerful, by overly ambitious military corporations, and above all by those seeking revenge. This kind of terrorism doesn't harbor movements or followers. The person acts as a single cell, you find its sources, and cut them off and no other person will take its place." Rashid placed his sunglasses back on.

"I should find the sources." Spike agreed with him, but it wasn't that simple. This thing could not be stopped. "It might do me no good. I need to get the Mtrace off her."

"What has been written cannot be erased." Rashid answered.

"That's it then?" Spike shot up, angry to have wasted his time with him.

"This was not written by God, but by human hands and human ink, and therefore it is not perfect. Perhaps the ink came from a place called Drachma." His answer was cryptic, but methodical. Spike had no choice but to make note of the name, and try to find out as much as he could about it.

Spike began to head for the door, when Rashid's grip suddenly stopped him. He held Spike by his arm.

"God has placed the choice in your hands for a reason. Allah-hu-Akbar." He said, and then let him go.

Spike couldn't help but feeling that God hadn't anything to do with him anymore. He'd never had anything to do with him from the beginning.

----

Spike jumped out of the cockpit of the Swordfish II, stretched his legs and arms, and rolled his shoulders back. The tension knotted his muscles into a hard clump of stress. He was less flexible, his vision a bit hazy, and his mouth was dry as all hell. He needed a real cigarette badly.

He had wandered around the neighboring streets of the Moroccan medina, but found that the Russian market—a bootleg haven—was nearly empty, and little Havana may as well have curled back to an island in the sea. There were no old men playing their dominoes, few cafes were open to the public, and the street smelled stale instead of its usual warm scent of freshly baked Cuban bread.

He wasted a good half-hour doing that, but he needed to walk it off before he could return to the Bebop. He thought that perhaps Moroccan street just happened to be dead that day, but Rashid was right. The whole damn city had gone into panic mode since the last bomb exploded this morning. Schools shut down as early as yesterday, and a lot of people didn't go to work the minute they heard or felt the news of the last explosion.

Goddamn it, he had headache. He hoped to god Jet had aspirin in the first aid kit.

Spike found Jet sitting down smoking a cigarette very carefully, savoring it, definitely concentrating on it more fiercely than usual. In front of him was a plate of the bell peppers mix he tried to pass up as a meal with some left over sukiyaki. All the cables and extraneous files, papers, and other research messes had been cleared away with one swoop. They had all ended up at one end of the center table. Ed was nowhere to be found, and neither was her tomato or her dog.

"Sit down." Jet had heard him come in, but he didn't glance towards Spike or even digress at all from his cigarette. Spike abided by his request.

"Rashid told me to look up some place called Drachma, might be a company, or something." Spike muttered looking around again for Ed, or any signs of life. Did he have to fight Faye and sedate her? Something was definitely bothering the hell out of Jet.

Jet put his cigarette out on the table and then fixed his eyes straight on Spike. Spike felt his body lean backwards a bit, and his brows furrow. Jet was about to bite his head off, he could tell.

"Have you heard of Drachma?" Spike asked, and instantly regretted he had interrupted Jet before he even started.

"Shut up. It's my turn this time. I talk, you listen." He turned his mahogany eyes towards the pile of junk at one end of the table. "I have followed along with everything you said so far. I let you come back into this ship. I left you and Faye to your own business most of the time." He paused, his facial features as stern as ever. "But don't you ever fucking talk to me like that again." The Black Dog tone, that bite that never lets go, had suddenly emerged steady and fierce.

Spike wanted to ask what the hell he was talking about, but he remained quiet. Allowing Jet to think that Spike understood exactly the threat that he just made would probably ease his comrade rather than incite more anger in him. He needed Jet on his side. He had no one else at this point, and fuck, he couldn't do this alone.

"Don't you ever dare to talk about my ship, or any member of it like we're some instrument or some burden of yours. This is my ship, and don't you ever think you can order me, Spike. Things have changed since you left. I will not put up with your shit anymore." Jet added with a poignant hiss on each fricative.

Spike understood now. Jet had finally had it with him, and now he needed some sense of control back. It was slipping from him, and whenever it did, Jet would usually distract himself or convince himself that everything had meant to be okay. He had never seen Jet go all cop on him, but hell, he had never seen so many things he had experienced in the last twenty-four hours so nothing came as a surprise anymore.

"Now, I'll get Ed right on Drachma, and I'll see what I can fish up with ISSP. Faye is still in her room, and I don't think she's sleeping." The dark shadow of the Black Dog receded from Jet's eyes, and he returned to his weary old self in an instant.

Spike nodded, and read between the lines. Jet had just ordered him to go talk to her. He had no idea if could actually manage that right then.

----

After a much needed cigarette and bathroom break, Spike headed towards the shrew's door. Shrew, the word sounded weird to him now. She had become Faye, a woman, and someone that he would do anything to get her out of his head. He stopped a few steps short of her door, and glanced down at his bandaged hands. They still stung a bit, and suddenly it felt like the perfect time to inspect them. Small red scratches clung to his knuckles, and he had a greenish bruise near his wrist that he hadn't noticed before. Looking at it then, he realized it hurt a bit to move it. But what really began to bother the hell out of him was this small hangnail on his left thumb. He tried picking at it with his black splintered nails but it didn't even budged, and then he went full on with his teeth.

He almost had the little white flap between his two canines, when suddenly two hands clung to his right leg. His heart almost fumbled out his mouth in that split second, which is how long it took him to realize that those hands belonged to Ed.

"Ed, what the hell are you doing here?" He scratched the back of his unruly head.

"Watching Spike-person avoid Faye-faye." Ed let him go and tumbled backwards. "Does Faye-faye hate Spike?"

Spike's annoyance faded from his face. "Maybe." Spike answered.

"Because Ed thought Faye-faye hated Ed, and she doesn't. Ed thinks Spike loves Faye-faye, and that's why Spike-person is always sad." She added detachedly, and rather unknowingly, as if her mouth had been speaking by itself and Ed had merely been standing there listening along with him. She tumbled again, and then several times until she was out of view.

He sighed and rubbed his temples. If he was going to talk to her it was now or never. And never sounded much better with each second, but seconds was what had gotten them into this mess in the first place.

He knocked. He felt stupid just knocking like that, but instead he focused on his facial features. The last thing he needed was to be completely readable to her.

"What do you want Spike?" It was no use to even try to convince her to open the door, so he did it for her. The door slid open and pushed out a whiff of smoke towards him. Faye Valentine sat on her bed with an old soda can in one hand, and a cigarette on the other. "And your manners are primitive as always."

He didn't feel anything when he saw her. There were no urges to smell her hair, or touch her, or look at her face more closely. It was an empty room with two empty people in it.

"So spit it out. Whatever it is you came to say." Her voice sounded so brash, so high-pitched and nasally. It bugged him. It bugged him more then than it had ever done so, and her breathing too, and the vulgar way she held her cigarette. She could be so unattractive sometimes. "Fine, be creepy and just stand there watching me."

His heart started beating faster, out of control, just like that. In seconds he had swallowed an entire marching band worth of drums, and they all palpitated off his organs and echoed throughout him. And then his body rebelled, his mind was still blank, but his body moved on its own. It went straight for her, and leaned down. All he could do was watch as her cigarette slipped from her fingers and her emerald eyes rounded up in shock, and their lips touched.

It took her a few seconds to register the assault, but he pulled back before she could push him away and he grabbed her. He wrapped his arms around her. He felt like he was going to die.

"I never wanted to go near you. I knew this would happen. Everything I touch turns to shit, and I—," Jesus Christ he was confessing, like an idiot, like a coward. He blabbered on too long before he could stop himself.

"Get the hell off me." She whispered. Her body had stiffened up intuitively. He released his grip and stood up immediately. His senses returned to him again, and his body came crawling back to his domain. He noticed her lips had turned a slight red from his kiss, and instantly brought his hand to his own feeling a prickling sensation lingering in them. She smudged the cigarette with her heel that had quickly burned to ashes on the ground, and lifted her gaze to meet his. She shook her head.

"Christ, Spike, look at you. You look like hell." She pulled a violet lock of hair behind her ear. "Why do you do this? I don't get it. No wait, I do get it."

His body hadn't completely stopped pounding, instead it had all gathered up in his throat. He felt like a stupid naïve child.

"You know Spike, when Alyssa told me that you loved me I didn't even budge. I wasn't in the least bit surprised that she would be that confused, after all she doesn't know as much as she claims to know about you. Because—you—Spike Spiegel, don't love anybody. Everything in this world is about you. This is all about you. The bomb, the city, and me." She paused, and swallowed what might have been a spiteful chuckle.

"I can't believe it took me so long to figure you out. You're so simple. Did saying all that to me make you feel better?" She didn't wait for an answer, and he wasn't planning to talk. Ever. "No, of course not, because when you walked in this room you had no intention of apologizing to me. Hell, you didn't even know you were going to kiss me."

She frightened him, more than anyone had ever frightened him in his life. Her thick verdant glare just dug deeper and deeper, and singed into him. She peeled him layer by layer, until a transparent film, a two-way mirror was left. She had the side that could see into him. All he saw in her eyes was himself.

"I'm right, aren't I? Of course I am. You don't love me, Spike. You never will, because it will always be about you. And no one can compete with that. Not even Julia could." She shook her head again, and sighed. "I'm the one with the trigger, but you know why you're staying here in the pretense of helping me? It's only because you think it's about you, because Spike, if this had nothing to do with you—if this was about me and someone from my past, would you be here?" This time she paused, and the seconds, and the digital ticking from his wristwatch dragged the silence through the room.

"Would you?" She pressed on as her voice reached a higher pitch of annoyance.

Spike stood still, his stoic face a solid white expression in the midst of all the chaos. He felt naked. Every limb, every part of him had suddenly become so present and so apparent to him. Every scratch on his body and every bruise shone brightly, purposefully, taunting him with a "here I am, a million blemishes of your façade."

"Didn't think so." Faye answered for him. She slowly got up from bed and headed towards the door. She turned off the dim lights, and the door slid shut. Spike thanked the comfort of the darkness and the sanctuary it provided so he could hide his nakedness for a while.


	16. 28:04:01

okay, so this stupid piece of shit website is not letting me keep my hyphens, so now it looks like crap with these stupid line breaks. i wish they would stop changing it.

* * *

28:04:01

_I can't look at you anymore._

_…You fell in love with her._

_Just pull your shit together, Spike. You're falling apart._

_Is this why you came back?_

The throng of voices spun in his head as his brain carefully picked apart details like tone, manner, and choice of the words themselves. Each phrase crackled against each dendrite incessantly until the words burned to a headache. Only one image lingered—her red lips—and they spouted guilt, anger, and indifference. Perhaps it was the indifference that shook him, that irreverent emerald stare that caused his heart to collapse inward, and not from heartbreak. He wasn't stupid enough to be heartbroken at a time like this. He just hated her. He never really took enough time out of his day to hate her until now. Not until he loved her. He loved her.

Oh yes, he loved her. But right now, he needed to hate her.

He knew he couldn't punch her out of his mind, but he tried to anyway. The rage powered his fist through the thick stagnant air of the dark storage room isolated in one corner of the ship. One hour passed of kicking barnacled love and lingering phrases out of his mind, then the second, and finally into the third he decided he would punch himself back to sanity.

_I don't want anything to do with you_.

He fought her harder and faster, and all the more passionately, recalling that the last time had felt this rage had been with Julia. It had come in spurts at first when she would inadvertently cancel a meeting because she carefully noted a hint that Vicious suspected something. The spurts turned into fights within himself about her leaving Vicious, about having the courage to confront him once and for all. Then finally one day of that unspoken goodbye between him and Julia, and the little strips of a paper promise that she discarded in the wind—that day the rage exploded. He was ready to die or go on without her. He had never pondered her reasons. He had only enough room in his heart for spiting her so he wouldn't fall apart.

_You don't love me, Spike. You never will._

He lost his breath then and a tired hand pushed against the wall for support. His energy had washed out of him faster than he expected. Now he was angrily exhausted. Sweat poured out of his skin wishing to cleanse him of whatever urge had propelled him to punish his frail muscles to this extent. A warm drop slid down the side of his right cheek, and he noticed it felt different than the rest, and that it hadn't been a band of sweat. His discordant eyes widened and darted towards the ground where the lone drop crashed. He lifted one hand to his dark mechanical eye, and realized he was choking.

The sob was choking him while fake tears welled in a numb eye. His trembling hand rushed to his mouth as the sob threatened to escape, but his throat pushed it down further and held it there, lumped and swollen. His hand no longer knew what to do so it curled to a fist and whipped around to punch whatever was choking him. His eyes drowned in fear as they identified the blonde beauty with one hand extended out to block his attack. He had grown accustomed to her sudden appearances, but not the warmth that now radiated from her skin. That kind of immersion of reality broke him. Spike Spiegel stared with his distorted looking-glass view into the judging verdant eyes of Julia.

He closed his eyes as his arm started shaking in her grip, and the instant he blinked the tears away, her image dissipated and instead he found Jet's large hand holding his taut fist.

"What the hell? Are you all right?" Jet said while still holding his partner's trembling hand. "I've been calling to you for a while now."

Spike's lips parted and then closed again. He drew in a deep breath and swallowed the aching sob down to his stomach. Spike lost all feeling in his arm and when Jet inadvertently let go, it just fell to his side. With his other hand, Spike wiped away the silent tears from his face.

"Ed's onto something, and I just came to…" Jet shook his head. His brow crumpled while his eyes remained open and his lids remained inert. "I—uh—will keep you posted," he stuttered and then turned around and left him.

As Spike's breathing returned to normal, the slow beat of a headache began surging through his temples all the way down to his neck. A raw ache scratched against his throat and dryness cracked on his lips. His hands stung—his bandages heavy with sweat and blood. Spike's mind focused on all the diverse pains clinging to the different parts of his body. He had already forgotten Jet and Julia, and everything else. He needed a cleansing to take the salt away from the small jagged cuts in his hands. That was all the planning and thought his mind could handle at the time.

A moment of shame filled him when he peeled the soaked clothing from his body. His mind wasn't ready to encourage more self-humiliation, so he quickly entered into the shower and let the water do its therapeutic job. The pressure of the water would range from too soft to achingly hard, and he always had to adjust the hot-cold ratio as it would vary as well. This kept him occupied as he attempted to figure out a pattern between how long it would take to adjust one way or the other. When the water turned rough he would just let it drum on his neck and massage the tension that fueled the headache.

Once he stepped out of the shower, he dried each aching part of his body very slowly. The white cotton passed through his leg and the pain went away. It passed through his arms, his chest, and hands healing the pain as he dried himself. He then wrapped his head in the towel and shook it several times until the muscles let go and his headache disappeared. Even his hands had stopped bleeding, but he bandaged them again after he got dressed.

Once the headache had gone, it had taken the rage with him and it enabled his mind to focus again. Nothing but stopping Alyssa mattered. After that, then whatever happened would happen, and it was out of his hands. But he wasn't ready to let go of his last power over his life right then. He would finish this first.

"Hey, Jet? Anything?" Spike asked as he entered the control room. Ed had relocated her tomato leaving behind all the contraptions to track the bombs since that had proved useless. The mess, Spike assumed, interfered with the girl's concentration. It sure as hell interfered with his.

At first Jet didn't respond; he simply examined his partner without really looking into his eyes too much. He seemed ashamed that he had witnessed Spike in such a desperate state.

"Well?" Spike was beginning to get annoyed by his demeanor. Jet cleared his throat and finally decided Spike was sane enough to hear his answer.

"Ed found something about Drachma." Jet's body was still tense. "It turns out Drachma is an importing company in Olympus. They were the main suppliers for that military company Alyssa blew up, Sirius." He took out a cigarette and offered Spike one, which Spike took obligingly. "Anyway," Jet added as he lit Spike's cigarette first and then his own, "Ed found a customer with the most orders in the last year, and we got a name. Nathaniel Fallon. He was some lieutenant general at Sirius."

"Fallon? Do we know if he is connected in any way to Alyssa?" Spike took a long drag from his cigarette. Cigarettes were the best thing that had ever happened to him.

"No, but that's not why we paid extra attention to him." Jet seemed somewhat relieved now, as they shared a cigarette smoke over what could be easily misconstrued as the most casual conversation they had exchanged in ages. "The delivery address is an odd one. It's not the military complex in a lot of them, but a church in New Haven."

"Wait, why would he list a church in New Haven as a delivery address?" Spike stopped let out a puff of smoke. "Unless he was hiding something from the military."

"That's what I'm about to find out. I'm headed there now," Jet said.

"I'm coming with you." Spike reached into his jacket and made sure he had both his replacement Jericho, and his back-up clip in place. Jet shook his head.

"No offense, Spike, but every time you go somewhere something ends up getting blow up." The joke in his phrase had been obvious, but his tone had been overly serious.

"You know," Spike said adding the rightful tone to the joke. "That's kind of true." He cocked an eyebrow at Jet. "What can I say? I have a very flammable disposition." Spike watched as Jet's shoulders relaxed as if realizing that Spike was still himself. Jet chuckled, stood up, and motioned with his hand an 'after you.'

"We'll be back Ed, make sure to,"

"Right-o Captain." Ed interrupted before Jet could finish his sentence.

"Right," Jet mumbled and headed for hangar right behind Spike.

"Jet." Spike suddenly stopped right before reaching their crafts. "Is she?" He couldn't help worrying about her anymore, just like he couldn't help not having the courage to finish the sentence.

"She's asleep. I made sure of that." Jet responded briefly darting his eyes to the ground.

"All right, thanks." Spike muttered and started walking again as the hangar doors opened. From the corner of his eye, he saw Jet's mouth opening to say something, but it quickly shut again and the old cop brought his hand to his bald head. "Let's go," Spike said and they both hopped on their individual vehicles.

* * *

New Haven was as desolate as Spike had expected. This little barren neighborhood had been a promising development back in the late fifties, but the construction of the new suburban town off in a corner of Alba had been stopped dead as the CEO of the real estate company suffered some major accounting scandal and went completely bankrupt. The scandal left behind some flimsy naked structures of houses. Some of the wood was still wrapped in the plastic coverings, but the logo of the company has faded leaving a faint trace of an "E" and maybe an "L." The church though, one of the few left in the Solar System, had been built long before the development started. The regal relic still stood there, half broken and worn, and looked unfinished as well.

The front of the church had two flat arches on each side of the entrance. The white bricks had turned sallow from the pollution, and the larger arch holding the simple post-and-lintel wooden entrance looked mud dark in contrast to the rest of the building. When compared to most cathedrals, this one was small, but the arches still elongated the structure and made it seem more majestic in the darkness. Jet pointed to the right side of the church to an adjacent building. It was white as well, but modern, and oddly paired with the Renaissance-style cathedral. On the other side of the building was a small patch of green with some swings and tower-and-bridge contraption hooked to a metal slide. The only light of the yard came from a lamp attached to the roof of the building. He always felt chills when seeing an empty playground.

They saw the light of the building still on, and so Jet proceeded to knock on the door several times. The hour was quite inopportune, but they hoped that since someone was till awake that they would answer. Spike glanced down at his digital watch. It was ten at night, but to them it meant that there was only twenty-four hours left before the bombs went off. Spike joined in with Jet's heavy knocks with a renewed sense of urgency.

"You think they're ignoring us?" Jet asked as he knocked again. They had been knocking for ten minutes already.

"Please, we just need to ask a few questions this is urgent!" Spike shouted, and they heard steps heading to the door.

"All right," a stiff female voice uttered from the inside. "You'll wake the children if you continue. Who are you?"

"We have a list of invoices we would like to talk about. Please. We're only investigating something. We mean no harm," Jet said.

"Are you the police?" the woman asked.

"Please open the door ma'am," Jet pleaded and Spike slid a disk with the copies of the invoices in a slot that said donations on the wall. He heard the disk clank inside. "Please just take a look at that for us, and tell us if you know anything." The steps receded.

"I'm going to see if the church is open. They often leave a portion of it open to for twenty-four hour chapel worship," Spike said

"How the hell—how do you know this?" Jet corrected his sacrilegious diction.

"When you're homeless, you tend to figure some of these things out." Spike smirked and headed for the dark entrance of the church. It had two street lamps on each side of the building. The faces of the angels atop the columns to each side of the flat arches were dirty, dark, and gray. In the dim light, their sinister blank eyes stared at Spike like wary sentinels.

The heavy wooden door slowly creaked open. He had been right after all, and this church left its doors open for prayers, but as to who in their right mind would come all the way over here to pray late at night truly baffled him. The overall darkness extending to every corner of the church was mildly subverted by the candles lighting the white statue of Saint Francis on the left side, and a large colorful statue of the archangel Saint Michael on the right. Both statues were underneath large arches, tall enough to intimidate, but not quite as tall as the roof itself that was darker part of the building. There was a large empty space in the nave between the entry and the actual seating. The apse where the altar stood was slightly lighted as well with a thin metal cross glowing at the center of it. Spike could see a small door the right side of the apse.

The dark resonated with the echoes of Spike's steps as he headed towards that small door that he hoped led to the clergy's offices. He stopped momentarily thinking that he heard the sound of someone's breathing, and looked up at St. Michael's milky stern face and shook his head. He was getting paranoid.

"You can't sleep here," a voice said, and Spike quickly turned towards the side aisle of seating. He had completely missed that man sitting there. The lack of sleep had begun to severely affect his usually acute senses. The man stood up and turned towards Spike. He was dressed in a black priest's habit.

"I'm not," Spike began to say, but the priest interrupted him.

"Oh I'm so sorry. I thought you were a certain homeless drunk that likes to wander in here sometimes. I pray here from ten to midnight, and sometimes I catch him trying to sneak in." He came closer and the glow from St. Michael's candles revealed an older man with gray hair, and eyebrows, and brown eyes with a bronze flicker in them.

_Ah_, Spike wanted to utter, but instead kept quiet and stared at St. Michael with his glossy fist wrapped around a lance thrust into a black faceless figure that he supposed was the sculptor's impression of the devil.

"I haven't seen you around here before. Are you lost?" The priest's tone implied something else besides the usual 'Yes, I'm lost, could I use your phone?'

"No, I was wondering if it might be too late for a confession," Spike told him, his intention become clearer to himself as he spoke. This comment baffled the priest who now narrowed his dark eyes and crumpled his ash eyebrows. "I know I don't look like the type. Should I come some other time?" The priest regarded him curiously and then shook his head.

"No, no, it's not a problem. It's never too late. We just don't get many walk-ins, so I was a bit surprised. But yes—yes, I am awake anyway and I would be praying, but I might as well do something to help you. Just let me put on my—hold on. I'll be right back." The old man sounded somewhat excited and he hurried on to the small door by the apse. A few minutes later he came back out again wearing a long white toga-like robe with a purple stole dangling from his shoulders with a golden cross on each side and the cloth feathered at the tips.

"I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself. I'm Father Giovanni. I give the daily liturgies; the deaconess gives Sunday mass usually." The priest smiled and sat down on the bench behind Spike. "Are you ready to do this, Mister—?"

"Spiegel," Spike told him as he turned to the side to face him. "And yes I am," a pause and then, "Father, I have sinned and I have never confessed anything to anyone."

"We are all sinners, Mr. Spiegel, and we all have our secrets."

"I've killed a man, Father." Spike carefully studied the priest's calm reaction in contrast to the tenseness in his shoulders. "His name was Henry Reve." Father Giovanni's breathing became heavier.

"Do you regret this?" His features were rigid.

"Yes, I have always regretted it, but that doesn't matter now. Not to his daughter, Alyssa." The priest swallowed heavy at the sound of the name. Spike's intuition had been right. This priest was the connection between Fallon, New Haven, and Alyssa. "She will kill us all, Father. Just to get her revenge."

"What is this?" Giovanni realized Spike's intention hadn't been to confess.

"It's the truth, but you know that." When the Father didn't respond, he continued. "Alyssa came to you. She would have confessed before she did this." Alyssa was as pious as ever, and Spike knew this. He knew that the church would be the only refuge for her, and confession the only forgiveness she thought she needed. "I need you to tell me what she told you, Father, and who Nathaniel Fallon is, because if you don't, the children, this church, and everything will be destroyed."

The priest stood up. "That's enough, Mr. Spike Spiegel. Your intentions are an insult to this church."

Spike stared at him intently. He hadn't told the priest his full name. The priest realized his mistake and began to walk off, but Spike grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Sit down, Father, and listen." Spike tightened his grip until the father gave an exasperated sigh and sat back down. "She's placed over a hundred bombs all over the city, and in less than," Spike paused and glanced at his watch. He then pointed at it and showed the priest the time. "In less than one day, this place will be incinerated. And you knew this!" Spike's accusation rang heavy through the darkness of the ceiling above them.

"I didn't know anything! I have known Alyssa for a long time, and she wouldn't do this. It can't be true. And even if she had told me this, I couldn't tell you a thing."

"She placed a trigger inside a woman I know. A woman," Spike paused stumbling over what he should keep to himself. "Alyssa did this just to get to me. The trigger is lunged in this woman's chest, in her heart, Father. And Alyssa asked me to shoot it out if I wanted to stop this." Spike's jaw clenched. The guilt rose from the pain in his chest to the sourness in his mouth. St. Michael's glowing glare was unsettling him.

"Alyssa has suffered so much, but she just could not. She—she could not." Giovanni stammered turning to the angel's glare as well as if searching for a sign. His old freckled hands were shaking now, and when his eyes began to shift to the right as if recalling possible signs that could support Spike's claim.

"Father, this woman is suffering because of something I did, and right now, you're my last chance to save her."

The priest looked away from Spike and towards the center of the church where the cross hung engulfed in a silver glow. He had one hand over his lips, and the other crumpled into a fist. After a minute of silence, he removed his hand from his mouth and clasped it with the other one over his lap.

"I can't tell you anything from her confessions," the Father said, "but Nathaniel Fallon had some boxes delivered here and she was a part of it. They were supplies of some sort, and Alyssa politely asked the deaconess if she could have them delivered here. Of course, the deaconess didn't think anything of it because Alyssa has been a heavy financial supporter of this church and its orphanage. It was the least we could do. I never thought that she—well, I thought she was just going through a hard time."

"Do you know where they took those boxes?" Spike asked.

"No," the Father rubbed his chin nervously. "No, they would just store them here for a while, and then Nathan would pick them up. It was ongoing for a couple of months. They kept it in one of the back rooms there." He pointed at the small door, and Spike began heading towards it. The priest's shaken frail form was not able to guide him. Spike stopped abruptly as he heard the large wooden door open behind him.

"Nathan!" Giovanni yelled before Spike could get a good look at the intruder.

"Father, I've rented a bus under the church's name. Please get the children out of here, before traffic tomorrow morning. As soon as possible." Nathan whispered hoarsely and church just seemed to echo his words. "Take them to Tharsis, Olympus, anywhere."

Spike reached for his Jericho and slowly emerged into the light of St. Michael's candles. He met two new pairs of eyes, thick hunter green eyes. Spike immediately recognized his thin cropped red hair, and pale complexion, and those angry eyes. Nathan had one bandaged arm, and black scab covering most of his left cheek. His brow elevated at the sigh of Spike, and his jaw tightened. Nathan recognized him back. Spike was sure that this was the same man that had saved him and Faye in that explosion at Sirius. He was the one that had opened the door for them to escape.

"Nathan, what is going on? Is this true?" Father Giovanni spoke with pain reverberating with every word.

"I see he's told you." Nathan addressed the priest coldly, but his eyes never left Spike.

"Did you know?" The priest continued to question him with a desperate tone. "Did you always know?"

"Father, just listen to me." Nathan extended a hand towards to the old man.

"No," the Father responded between clenched teeth. "We are staying Nathan. We are staying." Nathan was about to rebuke when a new set of steps clacked from behind him. Spike had expected it to be Jet wandering through the church grounds looking for him, but instead he met with Faye's stern face. She walked down the center of the nave and then down between one of the benches until she was side by side with Spike. Her right hand was tucked behind her, ready to pull out her gun.

"What are you doing here?" Spike asked her, innerved by her sudden appearance. This complicated matters even more, but Faye didn't respond. She simply focused her eyes on Nathan.

"I know him. What the hell is going on?" She pulled out her gun and aimed it at him. Spike wished Jet had given her stronger sedatives.

"Yeah, I know," Spike said, "it makes sense now that he helped us back then. He was working with Alyssa the whole time. He got her the supplies she needed, and probably even the labor."

Both the priest and Nathan stared at her intently. Nathan had a grimace of repulsion and fear, while the Father had this painful sour expression as if he was staring at a ghost or lost spirit that had wandered into his holy place. Someone that he knew he couldn't save.

"I know I don't look that great right now, but there's no need to stare." She cocked the gun at Nathan. She was right, Spike thought. She looked pale and worn with that t-shirt dangling over her thin body. "Your little girlfriend has given me a lot of problems, you know that?"

"It doesn't matter anymore," Nathan said and turned back to the priest. "Please take the children and evacuate."

Giovanni ripped his stare from Faye and turned furiously to Nathan. "Why is she doing this? How could you allow this?"

"She's doing this for revenge, and even if I hadn't helped her, she would have done it on her own. I didn't fucking know that she would go through with it!" He yelled back at the priest and then stared at the thin metal crucifix at the center of the apse. "Not until it was too late. I was—Father, please, take the children." The priest shook his head.

"How could you? What does this have to do with a city full of people? With innocent people?" The priest seemed on the verge of weeping.

"Nothing," Faye answered for Nathan, "but in her mind, this has nothing to do with anyone." She turned to Spike as she said that. "It has nothing to do with anyone but her and her alone."

"No! It has to do with him!" Nathan pointed at Spike. "You. Ever since, she's been obsessed with you. She can think of nothing but you!" Spike read the resentment and jealousy in his eyes, but he still didn't get it. He didn't get Nathan, why he would do this, and what the hell he was even talking about. Ever since what?

"Even so, what's the point? Why help her?" Spike wanted to know how a man would let himself be coerced that way, unless—

"The same reason why you'll do anything to save her." Nathan admitted looking away from all their stares.

"You're in love with her?" Spike uttered without considering what he was saying, and that Faye was right beside him. Nathan didn't answer. From the corner of his eyes, Spike saw Faye staring at him now.

"You have to tell them how to stop this, Nathan," the priest urged.

"I don't know how. I made her choose." Nathan was flustered. He turned back towards Spike. "And she chose you. How can I compete with that? It can't be stopped anyway."

"You're leaving!" Faye shouted and the gun trembled in her hand as she got closer to Nathan. "That's why you came here, because you're leaving."

"Stop, this is the house of God." The priest tried to intercede.

"How can I compete with him?" Nathan said.

"Give me a break. This isn't about her dumping you," Spike spoke in his low calm tone. "This is about you helping her blow up over nine million people."

"Father, this is your last chance. Take the bus and go." Nathan pleaded one more time with the priest, but the priest look over at Faye and shook his head.

"If Alyssa means to do this, then so be it." Nathan sighed at the priest's reponse.

"I guess that can't be helped," said Nathan and turned around to walk towards the exit.

"Stop! You could at least tell us where she is," Spike demanded running towards him with gun in hand. Faye ran back down the center of the nave and met Nathan at the end of the side row.

"I don't know where she is." Nathan stopped.

"That's not good enough!" Spike glanced at Faye who had her gun steadily aimed at Nathan, and then cocked his own gun at Nathan's back.

"Go ahead," Nathan said and Faye narrowed her eyes as if contemplating it.

"Stop this immediately," said the priest, "You cannot do this here."

"Sorry Father, we might have to make a bit of a scene," Spike added.

"Oi, Spike," Jet called as the wooden door opened abruptly. Nathan saw this as an opportunity to use a decoy, and pulled out a gun. Two shots fired, and none had come from Spike's gun. Spike had lunged towards Nathan, and pushed him down while Jet hit the ground at the same time. Nathan's gun had fallen by Faye's feet when she shot him. She had hit him right in the shoulder and the bullet had passed straight through and into the column. Nathan's stray bullet had probably hit a beam around the ceiling.

Jet got up and threw his hand cuffs towards Spike, who caught them and used to them to apprehend Nathan as he was groaning.

"What are you going to do with him?" He could hear Father Giovanni's voice emerging from his stunned silence, but Spike ignored his questions. Instead he pushed on Nathan's bleeding shoulder and whispered in his ear.

"One isn't enough? Do you want to kill off everyone I know? Well, this goes both ways, because you're going to help me kill the woman you love." Spike grabbed him by the arms and pulled him up. Jet grabbed him and began to escort him to the Hammerhead.

"You could have gotten yourself shot." Spike glanced at Faye who now was picking up Nathan's gun. He scolded her, but she simply stared at him indifferently. It irritated him, but by now, he was used to her dismissals.

"Father," Spike called back to Giovanni. "You better listen to Nathan. You should get out of here." His mismatched eyes remained fixed on Faye.

"I have faith," said the father, and Spike looked back at him. "I have faith in you." He stared past Spike to Faye. He noticed for the first time a small cross dangling from Faye's neck: the silver cross that belonged to Alyssa's father. "I will pray for you."

Faye's eyes became clouded and she said, "You better get out of here, Father."


	17. 22:30:01

I hope you still remember me. I haven't forgotten you. Forgive me. The next and penultimate chapter of BP will be out next week. Thanks for still reading. I love you and I've missed you.

---22:30:01---

"Again," Vicious said with his viper glare still fixated on the man chained by his wrists in front of him. He was gasping now, attempting to hold in a cry. Spike headed towards the already beaten man and punched him on the two exposed lower ribs, tight and defined under the stretched bare skin. When his knuckles hit, he felt the bones fracture and the young man instantly screamed.

"We don't have to do this for much longer. All you have to do is tell us who bought you off." Vicious voice was collected, monotonous and indifferent toward the scream. His voice never changed tone or pitch. It was constant, but seductive—reeling your soul in as he wrapped himself around to suffocate, if not to crack the neck. Vicious was the politician in these instances. Spike was the silent and violent partner that carried out the punishment. He'd have to smirk on occasion to let the shackled perpetrator know he was enjoying it.

It's not that Spike enjoyed it, but this was one of the few times it was personal. Lin had gotten shot on the shoulder, because someone knew they were coming.

"You thought we wouldn't find you, but we did. We will keep going until you give us something in return, a slow death or information—it's your choice." Vicious paused and shook his head to the side, instructing Spike to lift the man's face. Spike grabbed him by the chin and forced his bloody swollen purple face up. "Who bought you off? The Venetian Cartel? White Tigers?"

Spike let go of the man's jaw and punched him on the other side of his ribcage. It was a robotic dance that happened between him and Vicious. They seemed to know what each other needed, even in the field. Vicious would slice throats open, but when he seldom missed, Spike would finish it off with his gun. Those moments, those everyday moments in his life, were dominated by a different consciousness. Something else took over for a little while. He would carry out the job in violent fantasies in his mind first—within that split second before he did it—and then kill whomever he needed to. He would summon some unearthly rage hidden within him and come undone. His limbs would react on their own and his body would fight back any resistance. His eyes would go blank and in the darkness, he would kill them. He would squeeze out their life always imagining how the bones cracked inside or what organ the bullet had penetrated.

"Who is it?" Vicious hit him with the hilt of his sword right on the sternum knocking out his breath and causing him to cough up blood and some vomit. After regaining his breath and after a few blind tears and groans, he opened his mouth, but shut it again. Spike pulled out his gun and aimed for the kneecaps.

"No! Stop," it sounded like a small child's voice. "White Tigers. Liu of the White Tigers." Vicious sighed and turned away. Spike lifted the aim of his gun toward the chained man's head and pulled the trigger.

That had been the last time he had ever tortured someone to death.

* * *

"What exactly do you plan to do?" Jet asked Spike referring to Nathan, who was tied up to a chair in a storage room and injected with a synthetic coagulator to keep him from bleeding to death. 

"Whatever I have to," answered Spike not exactly knowing what that meant. The three Bebop crew members sat in the common room, but most of the arguing was between Spike and Jet. They argued over whether to clean Nathan up ("At least," Jet had said), take him to the hospital, turn him over the police (a suggestion made rather quickly and under the breath by Jet), or torture him to get the truth out of him. Spike mentioned the last suggestion so casually that Jet simply stared for a while waiting for him to complete a punch-line to a joke that was never made. As for Faye, she hadn't said one word after she told Father Giovanni to leave town. She still had that blank opaque look in her eyes—lost elsewhere—and with a dangerous lack of readability.

"So your great plan is just to beat it out of him?" Jet's glare had become commanding as a captain awaiting an explanation for his subordinate.

"I didn't say that. I said, 'persuade him into telling us the truth.' Besides, what would you have me do? Turn him in for the bounty, so then he can go ahead and tell ISSP about the bomb and Faye? Who do you think they'll choose?"

Stunned silence, then a cold chill. Jet didn't respond, and Spike wished he hadn't added that last part. He had as much tact in him as he did consideration. Faye hadn't moved from her position, but her stare wasn't glazed anymore. She was with them. She had heard him.

"I'm with Spike," she said after a while with her green eyes fixed on Spike, telling him something he didn't understand. "We should at least try to talk him into telling us where the hell she is. He has to know." Just as she turned to face Jet, Spike finally understood her glare. It was anger. It was blame.

"I'm all for interrogating him, but I won't tolerate torture on my ship. You hear me, Spike?"

But Spike didn't hear him, because a quick bark from Ein had interrupted the little attention span he had left. Ein had propped himself up on Spike's leg, and though Spike brushed him off with one hand forcing him to land on his paws, the dog didn't desist and gripped onto his pant leg with a growl.

"What the hell is the matter with this dog? Stop it." Spike shook off the mutt and, in the few seconds of silence, he thought he heard something coming from the back of the ship where Nathan was. It was an echo of something that fell, maybe a groan, or a voice. Had Nathan gone delirious? They weren't watching him for infections or fever. Was he trying to escape in his condition? Spike glanced down at Ein whose honey brown eyes widened as he barked again. "I'll be back," Spike told the rest of the crew and ignored Jet's nagging as where he thought he was going.

Spike crossed the gravity wheel and entered that dark hallway that led to the huge storage area. Once there, he could make out a muffled voice, but it wasn't Nathan's.

"So you don't have a nickname or you won't tell Ed about it? Nate, Nathan or something else?" There was a pause and Spike stealthily approached the entrance. He could hear the clicking of Ein's paws trailing behind him, so he turned around and told the dog to stop. Ein dipped his snout and stared back at Spike with regretful eyes. When Spike reached the door, he peeked inside to see Ed's back to the door while standing in front of Nathan who sat there, face down, hands still tied behind his back, his chest rising steadily and his eyes closed. He was conscious and tense because of Ed's presence.

"Ed will have to give you a nickname then. Do you know everybody's nicknames? There's Faye-Faye, Lunkhead, and well Jet is just Jet. You have to be the arch-nemesis, so your nickname is important." She regarded him for a bit. "You're different than Ed expected. Ed expected someone evil." She stepped closer and dipped her head in order to get a better look of his face. "But you don't look evil."

Nathan scoffed, and finally glanced up at her but with his neck still slumped forward. Tilting her head still to meet his face, she took one careful step forward, pointing her toes to the ground and then setting the ball of her foot down.

"No, not evil. Not a monster at all. Just tired and dirty," Ed added standing straight up again.

"Maybe that's all monsters are," Nathan said and Ed yelped and skipped back, Nathan sighed.

"No," responded Ed after nearing him carefully once again, "monsters are scary. Tired people are just tired people." In a random fit of curiosity, she poked his shoulder stained with blood and when Nathan flinched, so did she. Ed pulled her hand back instantly and stated at the red tip of her finger.

"You didn't say 'don't touch that,'" Ed murmured. "Most people say 'don't do that, or don't touch it.' A monster wouldn't have let me touch it."

"I'm tied up and in pain, kid. Get the fuck out of here," Nathan barked.

"You're just tired. You're not a monster at all. Not what Ed was expecting at all," she said slowly and quietly.

"Shut up already." Nathan was breathing heavy and he refused to looked over to his right side. "Just leave me alone."

"So then, why would you hurt Faye-Faye?"

"Get fuck away from me!" he screamed and Ed jumped back. Spike walked in and touched Ed's tense shoulder. She immediately turned around and grinned mischievously with her hands clasped behind her back.

"Ed, that's enough," Spike said. "Get out of here." Ed nodded with her wide smile still spread across her tanned face. As she walked out of the room, Spike heard footsteps rushing down the hall.

"Ed?" Spike heard Jet's voice say.

"Shh, it's Spike's turn now," Ed whispered and then the steps resumed, but withdrew farther and farther from the room.

"Let me guess, you'll be playing bad cop." Nathan chuckled.

"How's the pain?" Spike stood over him with a clenched jaw.

"Couldn't be worse," Nathan said and lifted his pale sickly teal eyes toward Spike.

"You know what they say though; it could always be worse." Spike felt a sudden onset of nausea. The smell of blood and sweat had become pervading and unavoidable. The screams of the people he hurt, the blood of the people he killed and the sweat of the fights he endured rushed back to him. He breathed in deep, suppressing his gag-reflex, and clearing the memories from his mind. He summoned the indifference he needed from deep within him. He couldn't feel even anger toward Nathan. Anger would invite an onset of other emotions along with it, none of which he could handle at the moment.

"How do you get in contact with Alyssa?" Spike asked as the muscles in his face relaxed and his eyes lost any emotion left in him. Nathan, for his part, laughed.

"The kid was better at this than you," he said. Spike's punch to Nathan's bleeding shoulder was not predetermined. It was a sudden reaction like that of the old syndicate days that stemmed from anger at his insolence and from Spike's own desperation. Nathan gasped, eyes moistened as he coughed and then gagged from the pain.

"Fuck you," Nathan muttered in a raspy voice as his limbs trembled from the rippling shock of the impact.

"Why are you protecting her still? You were planning to leave her, to escape. Why the hell protect her now?" Spike asked with his fist clenched and the bandages of his hand soaking with Nathan's blood. Spike could not manage that politician's cold indifference that Vicious had, but this would have to do.

"Because it's all I can do for her. Don't you understand? I couldn't save her."

* * *

Spike's throat burned as he heaved several times until he vomited into the toilet. His eyes stung from tears of effort to let go of the pain churning in his stomach. He only lasted an hour and then he had to leave. The clammy sweat and blood were getting to be too much. It had been too long since he had smelled that vile scent and felt the warmth of blood on wounds that worked so hard to heal. 

He flushed the toilet and slumped next to it with his face buried in his hands. His clothes were sticky from the anxious sweat that had spread throughout his skin like an infectious rash. For the first time in his life, he felt that he couldn't go through with something. He was afraid to go back into that room. To continue to question Nathan would mean having to endure that smell while Nathan simply avoided answering, while time ticked away his life, a city's life and a goddamn chance to survive this.

Too many deaths had made him weak, emotional and unstable. There were only so many times a man could die and come back without his psyche becoming worthless after a while. At that point, there had to have been some brain damage—that's what Faye would say. It was like a drug, like red eye—no—like heroin. There had to be a God, because God predetermined the amount oftrips a man could survive. For some it was one, but for others it was ten. It all depended on the soul taking the trip. The innocents died quicker. It happened with most drugs; the first time was the last for those young do-gooders that happened to slip only once. But the real sinner endured a lifetime of addiction until it corroded his soul. Not even a soul good enough to bargain for a decent spot in hell.

Spike had one trip too many. He had nothing to bargain anymore.

He stood up and washed his face without daring to look in the mirror. There was no need to depress himself any further. The bathroom door slid open and he stepped out as ready as he would ever be to go back into that room. Nathan had to know something, because if he didn't, then this was all for nothing.

As Spike walked back, he heard an exchange of voices again. He sighed, thinking to himself that he would have tie up Ed in the bridge to make her stay away. Kids shouldn't see crap like that. Spike knew that much.

"It's not like I can do this any other way. It's going to hurt." The voice was female, but not Ed's. Spike stopped just before stepping into view of the room.

"Why are you doing this? You don't have to." Nathan asked.

"What? Why am I doing this to the man that helped put this thing in me?" Faye chuckled. "Because I'm a bigger person—or something like that," she paused and then said, "No, nothing like that. Don't worry I'm not doing you any favor. It's because you and I have—unexpectedly—something in common. We care for people that can't be saved and it's gotten us into a lot of useless shit."

Spike leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.

"I like to think to myself that I could have stopped her if I had really wanted to, but that's a lie," Nathan said.

"Stop. This doesn't mean I don't hate you. Don't get me wrong. I hate you more than her, probably, because it was your weakness and mine together that got us to this point." Silence dominated for a few minutes and then steps headed towards the door. As Faye exited the room, she stared into Spike's eyes and acknowledged his presence in a way of telling him that she had heard him coming. She handed him a metal pan filled with soaked bandages reeking of blood and rubbing alcohol.

"He's all yours, cowboy," she said and walked away. Her steps mingled with the heavier metallic clunks of Jet's boots.

"She cleaned him up?" Jet glanced down at the pan in Spike's hands. Spike shrugged. "Did either of you get anything out of him?" Spike shook his head.

Jet looked tired. Not an ordinary kind of tired, but like his shoulders were sinking and his eyelids were a bit swollen as if something was weighing on them forcing them to droop at the corners.

"Are you going in again?" Jet asked, but this time Spike didn't respond.

Spike entered the room with Jet following close behind. He was indifferent to the old cop's presence, and maybe it would work to Spike's favor. Part of him knew that Jet wouldn't say anything, but that's not why he was there. Jet understood what silent intimidation was all about. That was Jet in these kind of situations, just a large body looming around foreshadowing some kind of violent and heavy consequence in the near future.

Spike set the pan down on the floor and examined Nathan's clean and bandaged wound. Faye had also dabbed the scratches on his face and re-tied his arms on his front rather than his back so he could support his sprained arm on his lap. His breathing was hoarse and his face extremely pale, so Faye probably wasn't worried about him. However, she had tied his feet to the chair.

Spike's nausea ebbed back into his stomach and his head stopped aching for the first time during that day.

"You don't want to answer anything, that's fine. I don't have time to waste on you," Spike spoke up after a few minutes of silence.

"An irony just hit me," said Nathan looking down to his lap, "I'm a bit slow cause of all the injuries, you know." He took a deep breath—talking was too tiring at that point. "The irony is that if I had just let you die back at Sirius, then this would all be over now." He then laughed in a sporadic way that sounded like he was choking on sobs at the same time.

"If you really thought that would stop her, you would have done it," Jet said. Nathan lifted his gaze up to meet Jet's and then turned to Spike. His light green eyes were moist at the edges. He suddenly laughed harder than before and tears ran down his cheeks.

"Oh God," he said between his loud chuckles. Spike's emotions returned to the surface and coursed back through his veins.

"Shut the hell up!" Spike yelled at Nathan, who instantaneously stopped his fit of laughter. "You killed all those people. You murdered them. You let her get away with it. You're just as goddamn guilty."

"Don't you think I know that? Fuck you, Spiegel! Fuck all of you!" Nathan's shouts nearly sent him wheezing, but he regained his composure quickly thereafter. "She was fine when I met her," Nathan began speaking in a low tone. "She was a genius, but not that kind of genius you'd expect. She has this amazing memory." His eyes, a darkened beryl green, glared down towards the floor. He gasped for a couple of breaths and then continued speaking.

"She wasn't exactly normal, but she was for the most part calm and composed. I was under the head engineer at the time, so I met her and trained her. She'd been recruited by Sirius to help them finish her father's work." Nathan bit his lip as if sudden pang of pain had interrupted him. "She was like a human database and knew everything he'd ever done by heart. She wasn't an incredible engineering genius; she just spoke her father's language. She proved she could do it and she was fine until that day."

Spike narrowed his glare—that day—Nathan had mentioned something about it back at the church. What day?

"I'm the one that took her there," he continued, "I took her to you." His face paled as his eyes shifted from side to side. "She'd heard something about a coup on the news, about the explosions downtown and she begged me to go there. I don't think she knew you'd be there. I didn't even know that she knew the men that had killed her father were Red Dragons. But bad luck had it, we found you there at the steps. What are the odds?" Nathan ran out of breath and hyperventilated for a while. Spike looked uncomfortably away, but he didn't know what to do. He glanced toward Jet who simply had a frown on his face and shook his head at him.

"She begged me," Nathan whispered. "She begged me in tears, so I lifted you up, and we put you in the monopod. She held you in her lap. Then we landed nearby and laid you down. Both of us knew you wouldn't survive a trip to anywhere, but when she checked your pulse, you were dead. She went hysterical—started screaming while I got out the first aid. She asked for epinephrine and pumped it all into you." His tone was becoming hysterical and his words rapid and slurred.

"And somehow, you lived. You must have wanted to live, or she must have wanted it badly enough for the both of you. Whatever it was, you were alive. I left you to get help. She had begged me again, and I ran into Celia—pure coincidence that she happened to be a nurse. And when I went back with her, Alyssa and my monopod were gone, but you were still there. So I ran. No direction. I just ran. She picked me up a few blocks later, and didn't say a word. Didn't say a damn word about it and acted like normal for two weeks until one day she says to me, 'I've had the most wonderful revelation.' And that's when it started."

"Stop," Spike said. "Why are you telling me this?" His voice was almost inaudible.

"Because it's not what you think," Nathan said.

"And what do I think?" Spike's tone became indignant. What was he supposed to do? Feel sorry for them?

"You think she was mastermind from the beginning, a sort of evil bitch out for revenge. You're forgetting that she's just a girl. She was abandoned!"

"A girl?" Spike grabbed him by the jaw.

"Spike." Jet tried to intervene.

"That girl has fucked me over. I don't give a shit about her. I don't give a shit what I did or didn't do. She can go to hell for all I care. I just want to fucking stop this." He forcefully let go of Nathan's chin. He then began undoing the wires around his hand and then his feet. "You can go to hell with her for all I care," Spike said after he had freed him and began to walk off.

"Wait," Nathan called to him. "There's only one transmitter receiving Faye's signal. It was too complex to program all the bombs to receive the same signal, so the bomb that has that particular transmitter sends the detonation code to the rest. I don't know which one it is. I stopped helping her way before that."

Spike sighed and kept walking. As he reached the door, he turned to Jet and said, "I'll go tell Ed."

"He needs to go to a hospital," Jet muttered. "He can't even walk on his own." Spike turned his head towards him, but his eyes stared past him.

"Take him to Doc. He'll take care of him without getting him arrested."

Jet cleared his throat and nodded. "I'll do it," he said and paused as exited the common room. "You should get some sleep. Ed is looking for it. She'll find it," Jet added.

Spike's reaction had slowed down to where he could barely feel his body. He turned towards Jet to respond, but a good twenty minutes had already passed and the Hammerhead had already taken off. Jet had dragged Nathan's body, probably muttered something to him and left, but Spike hadn't noticed any of it. He had sat on his couch just staring, perhaps even sleeping like a half-dead creature.

His grandfather had the ability to do that—to sleep with his eyes wide open as if all he did during the lazy afternoons was stare at the ceiling form his recliner. Spike had only visited him once at his Venus home, when he was four or something like that. It happened during those Freudian childhood years when everything that happens supposedly determines what a person becomes. After Spike's grandmother's funeral—he never met her, but that was the first time he met his grandfather—he went to his grandfather's house and the first thing the old man did was sit on his recliner. With his two yellowy index fingers, he rubbed and stretched the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and then leaned back against the chair, his face up towards the ceiling. Spike's father pulled a chair from the dining room and set it in front of the recliner. He asked his grandfather if he was okay, because they would only be staying for two more days and then they had to go back to Mars.

"If you need anything now's the time to tell me." Spike's father waited for an answer, but the old man just waved him off with one hand. His son scoffed and left for the kitchen to complain to Spike's mother as she started on some kind of dinner.

Spike sat down on the couch next to chair—it was a velvety dark fabric which he liked stroking—and leaned back on the cushions to look up at the ceiling. In his small voice, he asked his grandfather what he was staring at, but didn't get a response.

"Granpa?" Spike called to him. His eyes were wide open and the black pupils fixated on the roof. "Granpa?" he whispered a little bit louder. Spike stood up and neared the recliner. He examined his grandfather's slightly parted raisin lips and his light gray eyes. Leaning forward a bit on his toes, he slipped his little index finger under his granpa's nose because like any kid who had just been to a cemetery, he had a new awareness that anything and everything around him might abruptly die. But he felt the slight tingling of warm breath on his small finger and just as he became a little braver and got closer to further inspect his sudden discovery of little gray hairs poking out of his grandfather's ears, the old man spoke.

"Minerva," his mouth uttered while his eyes remained fixed above them as if he had just seen someone and couldn't stop staring.

Now that Spike was much older, he had gained a new—dormant until then—hereditary trait, but then stress was supposed to do these things. People would have new allergies and new ticks in the middle of their lives that they had never had before. In light of his exhaustion, he headed towards his room to find some nicotine. It would keep him awake, or at least not as dizzy and nauseous, until Ed found the transmitter. Then he could run and buy coffee on his way to stopping the bomb.

When he entered his room, his heart sped up and he suddenlyregretted his decision. He could feel her presence around him and when he turned on the lights, he saw her sitting on his bed staring at him.

"You ran out of cigarettes, remember?" Julia told him. "You ought to listen to Jet and get some sleep. There's nothing you can do."

Spike moved fast towards her about to hit her, but stopped when she said, "There's nothing you can do at the moment—not until Ed finds it." After a brief pause, she sighed and stood up. With her hand, she propped up his chin and tilted her head to the side, giving him that half tight-lipped smile of hers.

"What do you want?" He pushed her hand away. He was sick of his little imaginary ghost friend. "Why are you here? Why won't you leave me the hell alone!"

Her sapphire blue eyes rounded out in a compassionate expression, but her red lips frowned.

"I'm here because I can tell you things—because you won't listen to anyone else but me. That's how it always was, remember? You'd do such reckless things, but when I asked, you would stop if only for a little bit."

"Get out," he said, but she neared him and wrapped her arms around his body. He stiffened, but still unable to feel her touch. All he could tell is that something was compressing him and ready to break him in half. She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips against his ear. He could feel warm breath and her voice was as clear as he had ever heard it. "Get out," he repeated in a whisper.

"You know," Julia said, "They say that our minds are always storing information. Even after our hearts have stopped. Even in comas. We can perceive everything around us and our minds record it like a traumatic event, but if you dig deep enough you'll find it. Your eyes may have not seen anything, but the rest of your senses can piece it together."

He couldn't breathe anymore. His heart was stopping. His body was failing him.

"Do you remember the first time we made love?" She simply continued as he was dying. He was dying and she was reminiscing. "Vicious was away on this trip to make some deal on the comeback of an old drug. I don't know how it happened really. You came over and we started talking about my childhood, about my father and then we were in the bed together as if our bodies had found each other much better than we ever would." She unclasped the embrace and placed her right hand over his chest. He was still stiff, unable to breathe, and his sight began blacking out.

"What I remember the most about that moment is that my heart felt like it stopped," Julia whispered and Spike lost complete sight. When he opened his eyes again, he was on the ground, his body numb, and Faye was on top of him—her mouth wide, screaming his name, though it sounded so faint—and then looked up around her as if she were lost. Then she yelled for Jet as Spike ebbed back into unconsciousness.


	18. 16:23:34

Okay guys, like I promised, here it is. Please don't hate me. The last chapter should be out in the next month, but I wanted to get near the end before school started up again. A few notes that accompany this chapter are on my profile page. Here we go…

* * *

---16:23:34---

"Please, don't die. Please." She whispered with her hand over his soaked chest. "Please, don't leave me. I can't take this again."

Spike became aware of his being, of the darkness he was engulfed in, and the voice that spoke to him. It wasn't Faye. Or Julia. It was Alyssa.

"You promised me, you wouldn't die. You promised me you'd always be here." Light in one eye—his mechanical eye. He could see red lips speaking, dark curls cascading on each side of her face and wet bands of tears reaching the corner of her mouth and underneath her chin. "You promised!" She screamed and punched his chest, then got up and out view. He heard a monopod's engine and then darkness again.

* * *

Spike slowly stirred at first—limbs awakening before his own consciousness. His lids had fused together, pushing down on his eyes like heavy weights every time he tried to open them. His memory caught up with him before he could manage to fully awaken. Julia's red lips, Alyssa's pleads, and his own near-death. He remembered Faye over him, and then nothing. His hand instinctively reached to touch his fake eye—his sudden curse. It recorded the most painful unwanted images, harbored them and summoned them at his weakest moments.

Spike's hands began to wander around the bed which felt softer and warmer than usual. He almost had his eyes fully open when he heard her voice.

"Are you awake now?" a child spoke. It sounded familiar enough, but he knew that it definitely wasn't Ed. "Wake up, sleepy head," the voice told him.

His lids blinked several times. He could almost keep them fully open, but his sight was blurry, disturbed by the light shining from behind him. That didn't make sense. The door to his room was right should have been facing the side of his bed. When he finally managed to focus his view, bright colors suddenly engulfed him. The gray of his room had vanished and been replaced by pink and violet hues and warm browns. He was lying on his side, so he faced the wall that had a wooden bookcase with children's novels and classics. On top of the case was a small space revealing the grainy pink walls and above that a display shelf with decorative plates and frames of family members he did not recognize.

Spike sat up and glanced at the pink sheets covering him and his memory alerted him immediately that the surroundings were familiar, but buried deep within him. He glanced at the framed amateur paintings of flowers and at the stuffed animals sitting on a shelf and another above that lined with perfumes and creams. He stared at the glossy black piano and more photos resting on top of it next to a metronome, and finally at the desk that had a picture of a woman that he almost recognized. She looked so much like Faye.

"A dream," he thought aloud.

"Well of course it is," said young Faye as she stepped out of a door next to the desk. "What else would it be?" She neared him and sat on the bed. "I've wanted to meet you for so long, though I knew I wouldn't get to. But circumstances have changed, haven't they?"

He said nothing, but instead studied the small teenager in her light blue pajamas. She smiled at him with a curious gleam in her eyes while pulling a lock of hair behind her ear.

"You like my room?" she asked. "You liked it the first time you saw it." She stood and walked towards the shelf with the stuffed animals. Smiling, she grabbed the small stuffed duck with the red bow, poked his beak with her small nose and then sat back down. "It's funny how you remember details like this, don't you think?" She waved the duck at him as if he ought to recognize it. "Do you know that everything started changing slowly when you saw that video? A part of you loved her then, but it was buried deep within and underneath all your other troubles that you didn't notice it."

Spike was growing lightheaded from all her talking and feeling somewhat nauseous, he wanted to wake up.

"And once you were left with nothing, it finally had a chance to surface."

"Why am I here?" he asked, wanting to end the dream before he threw up all over himself.

"There's a lot about Faye you don't understand. You're afraid you're going to kill her like you killed Julia. It haunts you, and you can't save her that way," she responded.

He couldn't listen to her anymore; the urge of the nausea overcame him. The pink walls and their child ornaments spun all around him.

"The bathroom, where is it?" he asked in a hoarse tone. Young Faye pointed at the door where she had come from, and when he started heading towards it, she jumped up and yelped.

"No, don't go in there!" she said as she dropped the fake duck on the mauve carpet.

"I need to use the bathroom so just leave me alone, okay?" He reached for the doorknob.

"No, you don't understand! You need to wake up! Wake up, Spike!" She kept shouting, but he opened the door regardless and the moment he did her shouts stopped. The bathroom was a dark room instead where both his parents were holding hands with a little girl he also knew. She was smiling and swinging their hands back and forth.

"Alyssa?" Spike said, and both his parents disappeared and she ran. He chased her through the darkness until it formed into a street. Shots rang around him so he ducked down and when he opened his eyes again, he was under a car and his hands were those of a small child and so was his body. Spike glanced at his surroundings, his mind piecing together the scene taking place before. He was reliving the shot that killed his father, but this time Alyssa was in the middle of the street with her hands over her ears, crying and screaming for them to stop. Then his mother ran towards him and was shot just like in his memory, but as she fell down her light brown hair brightened to blonde, and her face elongated, lips reddened. When she hit the ground she had completely metamorphosed into Julia.

"Stop it!" he heard Alyssa scream, and Spike saw himself as an adult with a gun aimed at Julia's head. This second Julia was kneeled before him with eyes closed.

"Stop it!" Spike screamed at his older self, and then shut his eyes wanting to wake up, wanting for the confusion to end. When he opened them again he was the adult holding the gun to what was now Faye's forehead. He looked towards the car and instead of himself. He saw younger Faye glancing at the dead Julia and then at him, crying.

Spike stared at Faye and then shut his eyes tight as he felt his finger pull the trigger against his will.

"Wake up!" he screamed.

"Spike!" Faye yelled and he opened his eyes. She was above him staring with disconcerted eyes. He glanced all around—the metal walls, his hard bed, the open door to his room on the Bebop.

"I woke up," he whispered. He sat up suddenly and he glanced at his watch. They had less than twelve hours left.

"You've been out for five hours or so," Faye told him and his eyes widened.

"Jesus Christ!" He pulled the covers off him and searched for his shirt and shoes.

"Spike!" she called to him, but he wasn't listening. "Spike!" She cupped his face forcefully with her hands. "Stop it. You nearly had a heart attack. We had to give you a sedative."

"Ed, did she find…" Spike stared at her light pink lips afraid to glance into her eyes.

"She did her best," she let go of his face and scoffed. "So-called genius."

"We'll try something else!" he yelled, exasperated by her carefree attitude.

"It's over. Don't you get it? She won. There's nothing we can do anymore." Her gaze focused on the dusty ground while his focused on the open door.

"Do you have a cigarette?" he asked. She fumbled around her shirt for moment looking a little lost as if she didn't really know what she was searching for. Then she stopped and bent down towards her white boots and pulled out a pack. He was slightly disgusted at the fact she kept her cigarettes in her shoes, but shrugged it off. He needed the nicotine more than he cared about where they had been.

Spike reached for his lighter sitting on the metal table next to his bed. He lit his cigarette and passed the lighter to her. She sat on his bed and the both of them silently consuming the heavy puffs of nicotine. It was something to do. He wasn't thinking anything in particular then, but just merely sitting in the dark next to her awaiting some grand revelation from above. There was a movie like that once about some centuries-old martyr. A woman. The scene was in this dark dungeon room and she was just sitting there with her head slumped and her bowl haircut hiding under a veil they had made her wear because she couldn't wear pants or something like that.

Then a brilliant light appeared and saved her. Is that how it went? It was something odd like that. He only thought of the movie because he needed a miracle. Not that he had even been the religious kind, but a miracle would save their lives. At least a mental miracle, a realization that would allow him to comprehend how to use the information he had received from Nathan. There had to be a reason for that.

"It's stupid," Faye said—she had finished her cigarette. "It's stupid to blame ourselves, I mean. It's stupid for me to blame you. It doesn't do anything anymore. Look at you." She shook her head with a look of pity.

"Fuck you," he said. She narrowed her eyes at him. "You act like I wanted this. That's fine, Faye. I don't give a shit what you think. Yeah, I was stupid and did stupid things, and probably the stupidest I've ever done was…" He faced her, but stopped. He was only an inch away from her. His body had turned, leaning toward hers. Her warm breath tingled on his skin and he wanted to pull back, but her eyes had completely focused on him. She would not release him from her stare.

"Finish it. The stupidest thing you've ever done is what?" Faye asked. "Say it."

"To come back to you," he hesitated—scared of the words about to leave him. "To want to be with you." Her stare remained inert, but tears dampened her eyelids. She closed her eyes letting them fall and leaned forward. Their lips connected and he swallowed her breath into his being. His hand reached towards her face, aching to touch her skin, but her own hand grabbed his the moment he made contact with her cheek. She moved away from him and stood up leaving him startled and disoriented.

"That's what I thought," she whispered and then just before she exited the room she added, "I can't possibly do this after all." She smiled—a tight-lipped half-hearted smile. Her hand grazed the side of his cheek and she shook her head sadly at him. She left him alone in his room after that; the second time she had done so in the last twenty-four hours. It was so sardonic and a little funny that he thought about laughing, but he didn't have the energy.

"Jesus Christ," he said to the darkness while pressing his hands hard against his face.

He could sit for the remaining ten hours to try and concoct some kind of miraculous way to save them all, but one big problem still lingered. He knew nothing about anything anymore. Spike Spiegel had been burned, scratched, driven to insanity, and rejected all the last forty-eight hours and truthfully, he had run out of resources before the countdown even started. Alyssa was already beyond insane and Faye didn't even hate him. She pitied him.

Did he believe in God? Could he pray the damn city to salvation like Father Giovanni would try? No, not at all. In fact, why would God listen to him, the very man that committed the murder that would ripple out in the stream of his god-forsaken life to pure genocide? No, he had never understood faith. He had never understood how someone could base their entire structure of life on something they could not see. It scared the piss out of him.

So what could he do now?

Most people would usually never expect it out of him, but whenever he had a situation which he couldn't find himself way out of or even when he lacked any direction he would go straight to him. He would enter his hut to find the sand drooling and slipping from his fingers onto the ground. The little grains would make ripples that would somehow reveal to this old shaman what would happen next in Spike's life, and right now that was exactly what he needed. He needed to know how this story would end.

Spike never claimed fortune-telling to be a science, but for some reason whenever Spike told people that he believed in such a thing they'd burst out in laughter. They would mutter on about how it was absolutely ridiculous and unlike him to spout about fate and the universe. It didn't matter to him. The shaman had never failed him once. He said he would fall in love with the most prohibited of pleasures and he did. He said that it would be his greatest tragedy and it was.

He had only failed at one prediction. Jet told Spike about it the second week or so that he came back.

"He said your star would fall, but here you are." Jet said after taking a drag of his cigarette. His black eyes fell cautiously on Spike with that skeptic stare that wondered still if Spike was merely a ghost or real.

"Maybe it did fall." Spike responded somberly. Jet shifted uncomfortably in his seat and shook his head.

"I don't know why I believed in the crackpot even for a second."

Everyone is entitled to one mistake in their lives. So okay, predicting someone's death and then that failing to happen would fall into the major blunder of his career category, but right now his answer would be better than nothing.

When he entered the hut, he didn't exactly expect Laughing Bull to be shocked at his presence. However, the old shaman merely glanced up at him and then down at his dripping sand again. There was not a remote sign of disappointment at least. One of his predictions had been completely off the mark after all.

"Wasn't my star supposed to fall?" Not that Spike wanted to rub it in, but at least some kind of explanation would do.

"The devil resurrected you," he paused, "you don't have much time."

"That's why I'm here," Spike said, sitting down across from him.

"You should know how it ends. It's happened before. The woman will die." His voice was coarser and deeper than usual.

"I need to save her," Spike said.

"The lives of people do not rely on you. Only she can save them now. Only she can choose."

"I can't lose her too," Spike said and Laughing Bull looked up from his sand and straight into Spike's right eye.

"You take women too lightly. You can't lose something that isn't yours. This woman isn't your redemption. She is your second chance at life. Someone must die in order for another life to begin. It is a cycle. The Devil resurrected you and someone must die in your place."

"Then the Devil will have to take my place instead." The old man closed his fist causing the remaining sand in his hand to burst from the sides of his tight palm and break the ripples on the ground.

Spike didn't wait to see if Laughing Bull had anything left to say. He had heard enough. The old shaman had been wrong about his death and he could be wrong about Faye's. Spike would make sure he was wrong about Faye's.

On the way back to the Bebop, he sifted through his memories and focused on Faye. It was mostly small details that had happened over the time he'd known her—memories that bobbed to the top of his mind that he never even thought he had actually paid attention to. There was that time when they chased the terrorist activist crazies through the gate. Spike and Faye's monopods made it out just in time, but she freaked out after the gate closed. She wrapped her arms around her head, afraid of the phantom dimension versions of the bombs heading for Ganymede.

"Didn't you learn that in high school?" Jet smirked and gave her the special physics lesson. Is that what her life was like? Was she constantly ducking from ghosts from another time, another place? She was born from a different world, and that's why she didn't know the things that were common knowledge to everyone else in the 21st century. Faye just didn't know. Her life as a child was under that perfect blue sky with its moon, which books say could sometimes be seen shining during the day like a white ghost. Spike couldn't imagine that moon. He couldn't imagine the earth full of people, of cities, of planes and cars. It didn't make sense. Earth had always been this desert, this spherical Atlantis that disappointed its visitors with its rusted ruins. An earth without constant rock showers. An earth full of laughter.

Faye was one of those portraits in history books coming to life. The pictures from the holocaust, from the wars and the end of the world, coming to life right then. She was one of those smiling kids in the photos of the memorials for the Gate Incident—a ghost that had outlived her entire generation.

What nearly killed her back then? He never asked. She had been resurrected to be punished just like him.

If it hadn't been because his comm. beeped, Spike would have gone straight past the bay and out of the city. He flinched when he heard the electronic ping from his speakers, thinking that it would be Jet angry as all hell, wondering where in the hell Spike had gone off to at a time like this. Time was the problem, Spike thought right before clicking to answer the call.

"Spike? Finally," muttered the old doctor on the screen. He rubbed his white moustache and gave a small grunt. "Jet didn't know where the hell you went—his words exactly."

"What is it?" Had Nathan died, Spike wondered.

"Nathan regained consciousness just a bit ago and insisted that I relay a message to you."

"Yeah?" So he didn't die. "I have a message for him too: his information was worth shit." Spike said, but Doc shook his head.

"It's urgent. He said something about giving a number to some woman, Faye, some other woman's comm. number. I don't know. He might have been delirious, said he had some bad feeling about it, didn't know what he was thinking and so on. You know, I don't do this messenger thing. This is going to cost extra."

Spike had stopped listening after the first sentence, immediately putting the information together in his mind. Nathan had given Faye a contact number—Alyssa's number. His heart was pounding. Spike shut it off as Doc began to rant again. He was at the bay already. He landed at the Bebop and saw her ship still there, so she hadn't done anything reckless yet. However, that still didn't appease him. When he went inside, he met with an exasperated and infuriated Jet in the common room.

"Where the fuck did you go? Who the hell do you think you are? We are killing ourselves over here trying to figure your shit out and you leave?" He was shouting. The first time Spike had ever heard Jet shout like he would be willing to kill at this point.

"I know, Jet, but we have a bigger problem," Spike replied glancing around him.

"The fuck? A bigger problem!" Jet muttered sarcastically.

"Jet, where's Faye?" Jet shook his head. Something in Spike's voice made his anger to relent to the question.

"You didn't see her outside? What's the problem anyway?" Jet asked.

"No, I didn't. Faye has Alyssa's comm. number—wait, why would she be outside?" Spike's head had begun spinning.

"I talked to her some time ago. She said she needed some fresh air and was going to go smoke on the deck," Jet's speech slowed down to a near-stop, "outside. She hasn't come back in. You don't think she would…"

_Take Alyssa on by herself_, Spike finished the sentence in his mind. He suddenly understood the gut feeling churning in his stomach. He shouted her name several times and received no answer. Jet used the intercom of the ship for once and called for her, while Spike tried her comm., but she had left it in her ship. Spike ran to the bridge and asked Ed to find her using the thing for tracking the bombs. Ed became immediately gleeful with the prospect of becoming useful again.

"We need to split up. She couldn't have gotten that far. She must still be somewhere on the Southside," Spike said.

"Shouldn't we just wait for Ed?" Jet asked, but Spike shook his head.

"Ed, call us when you find her," Spike added before heading toward the hangar with Jet following behind, quickly stopping by the Hammerhead to grab his nearest gun.

"I'll take west end, you take east," Jet said and Spike nodded. They left on foot, because it would be easier to find her through the alleys and small crowds that had formed despite the terror alert. It would be easy to miss Faye underneath the canvas roofs and the tightly packed buildings.

He usually had so much adrenaline. Spike was usually so durable, so strong. He had always relied on his body, on physical stamina for everything. Why was it failing him now? His shins were burning, but the more they burned, the more he ran. He dashed down alley ways with comm. in hand, stopped a couple of women that looked nothing like her even, but he didn't stop once. His Achilles tendons ached now, but his heart was beating fast and his body barely sweating. The pain didn't mean anything. He could endure this until he found her.

"Gotcha!" Ed's voice boomed through the comm.'s frequency. "Faye-faye's ping is on the west side of the city. Ooop, weird signal! Weird signal!"

"Ed, where?" Spike yelled back.

"Getting map! 60th and Huang road." Spike glanced around him. He was on sixtieth, and Huang was a couple of blocks away. He ran and when he reached the wide intersection, a few cars whizzed by, but there was barely anyone around. He examined the two banks, and the corporate building. He needed to think of something fast. Looking up toward the sky, he realized where she might be. He hurried past the sign that read _Alba High Park_. The city park was located on the roof of the corporate building, some eighteen floors up.

"Are you guys closing the park?" A young couple asked the front desk as Spike passed it towards the elevator.

"No, we're operating under our normal schedule," answered the security guard.

"Some girl was up there telling us that it was closing. I swear, paranoid freak."

As soon he entered the elevator, he had to crouch down and wrap his arms around his legs. Spike could hardly breathe and his heart was beating out of control. The elevator creaked and groaned as he floated up above, but by the third floor, he was already begging his chest not to have another panic attack. He had never felt so weak in his life than he had in the last two days. Everything had come at him at once, not letting him pause to catch his breath, his thoughts or his emotions. Spike hadn't the time to keep everything well-monitored and in control. Not only that, but every time the walls of the elevator creaked they seemed to tremble and grow a bit closer. How long had he been in there? He glanced up at the digital floor marker which passed the number 12, then 13. He had about twenty stories left and most likely not enough breath.

It had been years since his pseudo-claustrophobia acted up. When his parents died, he found that he couldn't be in any enclosed spaces or surrounded by too many people or his heart would start knocking his ribs, which in turn pushed down so hard as if to strangle it. At some point, they had thought he was asthmatic, but they only began to understand what was really happening after he suffered from a stomach ulcer due to the inhaler medicine they forced him to take. That's when they learned about his recurring nightmare.

The nightmare started out in his old childhood home. When he was five, he discovered a gun in a secret compartment under the large cedar bookcase in his father's study. As his small hand reached to touch the glossy pistol, he heard his mother scream behind him. His father rushed in as she pulled the gun box away from Spike. She disregarded Spike and turned to his father hysterical. They began screaming at each other. It was all so loud that he couldn't make out the words. He just wanted it to stop. He closed his eyes and then opened them again, and he was at the funeral. His parent's joint casket was open and they were staring at him. His mother began to reach with her hand toward him, but the door shut close on her. He flinched and suddenly felt the warmth of his breath hitting his face. He opened his eyes and he was in the casket with his parents and when he screamed and reached up to get out, it snapped shut.

As the elevator reached the 20th floor, Spike Spiegel stood up. He forced his legs to sustain him as he ascended, because whatever was awaiting him, he needed his full strength to survive it. Able to discern his claustrophobia from his horrible precognitive feeling, he took a deep breath and pulled out his gun.

The park wasn't all that large, but it had a good portion of oaks, bushes and thick green grass with three paved paths with benches along the sides that connected to a fountain at the center. Spike rushed through the trees toward that fountain. There were no people to interfere as far as he could tell, and he figured the perfect place to meet would be there.

Spike halted in his steps when he heard a voice. He had nearly reached the center, but he quickly dashed behind a tree to try and remain unseen.

"Did you bring it?" Alyssa asked. She was standing in front of the fountain on the right side and Faye directly across from her.

"Of course I did," Faye answered with a smirk. She pulled out the small silver cross from underneath her t-shirt.

"Give it back," Alyssa uttered the moment she saw it, but then retracted her words as she narrowed her eyes, "What do you want?" Her face was pale and her eyes opaque, lids swollen.

"I want you to take it out." Faye clasped the cross tightly in her hand.

"I can't do that. You know that." Alyssa's hand fumbled with the back of her shirt.

"You put it in me," Faye said in a low tone, "and I want you to take it back out. I have nothing to do with you!"

"Just give it to me." Alyssa's brow furrowed and Spike saw that her muscles tensed, ready to dash forward, while her hand behind her back reached under her shirt near the top seam of the pants. Spike's instinct was to trap her there, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. He turned around and saw Julia staring gravely at him. He took a deep breath to conceal the shock in him. He'd grown tired of feeling her. He wished it could at least go back to the numbness of before.

"Wait," Julia said. At that instant, Alyssa sprang forward with gun in hand. Faye saw it coming, pulled out her Glock, and kicked Alyssa's gun from her hand.

"Don't fucking play with me." Faye aimed the gun at Alyssa's head. Alyssa took a deep breath and few steps back, occasionally throwing a glance at the gun that was on the grass and too far out of her reach.

"You're going to kill me?" Alyssa asked in a whisper. Faye cocked her head to the side and smirked.

"Don't tell me, you're scared of dying." Faye lowered the gun to Alyssa's chest. Alyssa shivered, taking in another deep breath. "You are, aren't you? That's pathetic."

"Did you come out of that rusted ship to look around at all the people who are going to die in your stead? Spike is still having trouble making a decision, isn't he? I'm glad you're worth to him more than you look." Alyssa had regained total composure. Spike didn't understand it—women. They had the ability to suddenly change their emotions at will.

"You pretentious bitch," Faye responded just as calmly. "You're just like him. You think this is all about you. Just like he thinks this is all about him. You put the choice in my hands, Alyssa." Faye grabbed the gun with both her hands. "Who says I won't do it? Who says I won't take you with me first?"

Spike's mind sounded an alarm, but Julia's grip on his shoulder tightened.

"Listen," she told him.

Faye stepped closer with the gun and Alyssa's fear returned to her eyes, glancing more rapidly at the gun lying on the ground.

"See, there's the difference between you and me." Faye headed towards Alyssa's gun, her own barrel still pointed at Alyssa's chest. She squat down and picked the gun up. Faye walked back with both aimed at Alyssa. Faye smiled and then she turned one on herself.

"What are you doing?" Alyssa muttered with her hand extended toward Faye.

"Shall we?" Faye cocked her head to the side.

"Faye!" Spike couldn't hold it any longer and pushed Julia's hand away and ran in front of Alyssa. "Faye, don't do this." He heard Alyssa stammer something inaudible behind him.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Faye's hand started to tremble.

"Faye, you can't die. I won't let you."

"You won't let me!" Faye yelled. Her emerald eyes widened and her brows creased with rage. She didn't have the stare of woman about to kill herself. Not like those sad blue eyes of Julia, empty and sullen, but instead full of emotion, determined to live. "Fuck you, Spike!" Tears menaced to push forward. "Who do you think you are? I'm not Julia. I won't let you condemn my life. If I'm going to die, it's my fucking choice. Isn't this what you would do? Wouldn't you choose to die? But unlike you, I'm going to make sure no cryogenics or anything will bring me back to life."

"Faye." Spike neared with arms slightly raised.

"Don't come near me!" She shook the second gun at him.

"Faye, don't do this just to get back at me. Don't throw you life away just to get back at me," Spike pleaded. A loud sob left Faye's lips as the tears came unabashed. She threw the gun she aimed at him behind her, and grabbed her Glock with both hands.

"I can't," Faye began, but stopped and looked away from him.

"Faye," he whispered. "It's not worth it." Spike was scared. He had never been so scared in his life. His hands were now visibly trembling.

"Faye?" Spike heard Jet's voice and turned his head to the side to get a glimpse at him. He was holding his own gun at Alyssa's back.

"Jet," Faye sobbed and shook her head. She took a deep breath and glared at Spike. Her eyes were speaking to him again. They were telling him about her life, her past, the awakening in a world not her own. They were telling him about them, about that time he stared so deeply into her that she fell apart. They were saying, "One eye sees the past, that distant world under the bright full moon, and the other sees the future, this painful world we're living in."

His eyes widened as he noticed her arm muscles tensing. He leapt forward and a single shot echoed throughout the park. A mass of small mottled birds nestled in the trees emerged like fast arrows and headed east toward the sun.


	19. Finale

My dear readers,

Thank you for sticking with me these past two years. It's been a delightful experience getting to know some of you, and you have helped me grow as a writer. The last part of any story is always so hard to write because you need to say everything that needs to be said and somehow, it never turns out to be the case. The only difference is that I built the story around this ending, and I really hope I don't disappoint any of you with it. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you to all my reviewers and if you've never reviewed or you haven't in a while drop me a line this time, it'll make my day. :D

This chapter is dedicated to red tenko, ssg, john and all the other people that have helped shaped this story. Thanks.

Brigidforest

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* * *

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**Breaking Point**

_**Finale**_

When Spike thinks back to what happened in those last few hours, he scolds himself for not realizing anything before it got that far. By anything, he means the reality of his emotions towards Faye. He had ignored them or pushed them off like they were a dream, or that he was trapped in some kind of deluded state. He reasoned that he fell in love with Faye because she was the only other woman in his life that had ever had the guts to love him. It took a lot to love him, so then his love for her stemmed from that psychological need for companionship after such a severe trauma—it came from the need to be loved after feeling so damned. It was a brilliant rationalization after all.

When he fell in love with Julia, there was a similar thought-process. Being in love with your best friend's girlfriend was anything but logical, but Spike had his justification. Vicious and him had always competed for everything and at the time, he felt that Vicious had one-upped him. He had a real relationship, when Spike did not. Spike had his flings and one-night stands, and the women that stuck their tongues into his ear to please him, to gain for that moment some sense of danger and daring. To them, Spike was like sky diving without really knowing where you would land and if the parachute would actually work. He was exciting. In turn, Spike sought Julia because she was prohibited, because she gave him that sky-diving feeling he gave to other women. And then, love came furiously at him. It overrode any ecstasy of excitement and replaced it with longing. Horrible, god-fucking-tearing, kind of longing. He thought he would die.

When he fell in love with Faye, in the very back of his mind a voice said, "If she loves me, I can live. I can live. I can live..." He wanted to live, and he hated himself for it.

Nathan was a little like him. The first time Spike visited him (Nathan now waited for his trial in a max security prison in Tharsis), he didn't know where the urge had come from. Perhaps, Spike felt some sense of unfinished business, an unfinished thought that needed to be released. Perhaps, he wanted to apologize to this man, to this boy. Nathan looked like a boy with his light green eyes and his disheveled hair and a sad broken frown on his pale face. Spike had only visited twice, and that would probably do for a long time, but somehow the first visit left Spike with even more emotions risen from their depths and tugging at him until he got them out.

"So that's what she wanted," Nathan had said to him holding the crucifix in his hand.

"That's what we all wanted, in a way," Spike added.

"Yeah," Nathan whispered, tightening his fist around it.

"Are you angry?" Spike cleared his throat, suddenly regretting his visit.

"With Alyssa? Yeah. Am I angry I'm here? No." Nathan took a deep breath. "I'm the guiltiest one. I could have stopped her. I should have stopped her. I belong here. There's no one in here that belongs more than me. Genocide. Imagine. Not since the Nazis." Then looking down, as if to shield shame or oncoming tears, he said, "Why are you here? You don't need to clear your conscience. Not with me. I don't have what you're looking for."

That had been the end of his first visit, and his second one was brief. It was only to say:

"You're wrong. Without knowing it, you're redeeming what I've done." Then Spike left and never saw him again. He turned away from the newspaper photos of Nathan, from the reports, and later on, the history books and biographies. The story was over. It was over before it started.

---8:20:18---

Spike was on the ground and something lay beneath his arm. His right hand stung and his wrist had twisted when he used it to break his fall. With the worst sense of dread he had ever felt, he turned his head to the side and saw Faye lay there with her eyes shut and hair all over her face—his arm on top of hers. His body froze for a few seconds just staring at her intently, burning her image in his mind, and waiting to see if she would move—begging for her to move. Then, her eyes opened, but they were blank, soulless, but aware. Rivulets of tears began flowing toward the ground.

"Faye!" Jet screamed and rushed next to her. Spike sprang up instantaneously and scanned her body. There was blood, but from her old wound. He found no second wound. No gunshot. The gun simply rested loosely in her hand.

"I suck at martyrdom," she whispered. Spike didn't stop to ask where the bullet had gone, but grabbed the Glock from her hand and threw it away from them. He ignored Jet and lifted Faye up by the shoulders and held her. She was calm and pliable, and he was shaking. Shaking and holding her as if she were fighting him, or slipping away to fall of a precipice.

"I'm sorry," he said, meaning it for the first time, honestly and deeply. "I'm so sorry." He thought he would cry. He thought his whole insides, his maddened heart, were about to explode from within. Her hand pressed against his chest and her arm wrapped around him.

"I know. I know," she whispered.

The fear ebbed back into his mind, forced down by his anger. It returned vengefully and he turned to Alyssa, his wrath crushing his chest from within, wishing to annihilate, wishing to undo the very hand covering Alyssa's mouth in petrified awe, wanting to undo her gaping eyes with tears at their corners. He couldn't read the reasons behind her shock, couldn't decipher whether it stemmed from fear of death itself, or fear of her plan crumbling at Faye's own hands.

It hadn't crumbled and Faye still lived, and yet Alyssa stood there, trembling and unmoving, with her strength about to spill from her quivering mouth. In his wild anger, he couldn't understand it, and though the anger was not completely directed at Alyssa, but at himself and his cowardice and at Faye and her stubborn foolhardy bravery, he would still unleash it all on the woman that had brought them to this point. He wished nothing more but destroy her, to go back into the past not only to murder her father, but her mother, to undo her blood.

Spike released Faye, addressing Jet before he fixed his whole attention on Alyssa.

"Take her," Spike said, "she's bleeding," he turned away from Faye, and Faye, as if not to be ignored, placed one firm hand on his shoulder. He instantly turned back to her and held her face, an action which caused her reddened eyes to widen and Jet, to shift his form uncomfortably.

"I've had enough," he said to her in an apologetic tone and wondered if by her eyes softening and her lower lip trembling if she understood that he meant to say he was a coward. He meant to tell her in those few seconds to forgive him, because he was about to reject his fate and make his decision then. His mind could no longer sustain the siege that had pounded in him for the last sixty hours. Spike Spiegel was selfish, self-indulgent, self-complacent and self-deprecating. He just wanted it to stop and run away, and that is what he would do.

He shifted back to Alyssa, the murder in his rage dissipated and mostly resigned to the fact that both Alyssa and he were condemned now, but he would pass the brunt of the blame back where it belonged—on the shoulders of a twenty-one year old girl.

"I could take you by force," Spike said to Alyssa, "right now, and torture you, force you into telling me where the fuck the transmitter is. I could do to you things I never thought I could do to a woman before. All that just to save myself. Not the city, not the people, but me. That's all I care about. Faye's right about that." He stopped as the rage grew fiercer at the mention of Faye's name. Spike swallowed and then continued. "But you know what? Fuck you. They are your bombs." The muscles on his brow tensed. "They are your victims, your goddamn crimes. Take it and leave me out of it. I've hated this city and I don't give a shit anymore." It was partly the truth and partly a lie. The lie stemmed from his human condition which told him that he couldn't let over nine million people die. The truth, however, was that he had grown tired, helpless and defenseless. He wanted nothing to do with it anymore.

Alyssa made no response. She remained inert in the same position as before, her eyes stilled and her body overwrought with tremors. With a sudden and uncontrollable thunder of rage, he sprang toward her and held her by the throat. Her hand fell away from her mouth, which let out a gasp, and tears pushed out of her in waves from her dark turbid eyes.

"Are you listening!" He shook her. "Listen!" She whimpered and her black eyes fixed on him without any terror in them, but a resigned sadness. He released her; her body swung forward, collapsing on her knees. Spike walked back to Faye and wrapped his bloodied bandaged hand around the silver cross. He saw a tired fear in her green eyes, but she didn't object to his action. She wrapped her own hand around his and released her hold only after he had broken the chain from neck. Jet stuttered to say something, but in the end, kept it to himself. Spike turned around and pelted the necklace at Alyssa's face. It struck her cheek and part of her nose and fell away, cross apart from its chain.

"You bear your own blame," Spike said, his shoulders sagging, "You're killing nine million people. Do you understand?" Alyssa faced the ground and had stopped crying. She sat there, still and silenced. Spike tightened the hand that had held the cross into a fist and turned to walk away with Faye following somberly behind him. Jet, stunned to silence himself, denoted some signs of protest at first, but after a few seconds he sighed and followed his crew.

"No," a whisper came from behind them. "You're the one that doesn't understand," Alyssa muttered, but none of them stopped to listen.

* * *

Jet stood slumped over the navigator's controls. The screen in front of him had shut off a few minutes after reaching the orbit of Mars. Faye sat on the edge of the pilot's box near the window slowly smoking a cigarette, and Spike rested his frame against a metal beam dividing the ship's windows. The red glow of the planet below them set passively on their faces and the darkness of space was unaffected by the light of the moons, which hung lifeless like abandoned clay lumps. 

None of them had spoken in the last hour. They had simply entered the hangar and headed straight for the bridge, where Jet immediately powered the ship and led it away from city and into space. Spike hadn't dared to look at either of them, not out of fear, but rather, he wished to spare himself their judgment if only for this small period of time. At some point, Spike had closed his eyes and imagined the city exploding—the red landscape below illuminating in short sporadic twinkle that would eventually fade away. A little later, he pondered whether to speak and say some kind of apology, but he saw no point in it. An apology could not begin to explain the sentiment inside him—this thing that ate away at him and slowed his heart.

"Yesterday, I called ISSP." Jet was the first one to speak. "And confirmed that they had gotten an anonymous tip that there was going to be all-out terrorist attack on the city." Jet looked past the windows. "The mayor wouldn't go through with the evacuation order, something about pandemonium, procedures and politics." Jet had, for the first time, the most deadened gleam in his eyes that Spike had ever seen.

"Where's Ed?" Faye said after a few minutes of silence. She stood up and handed her half-smoked cigarette to Spike.

"In the gravity wheel somewhere, why?" And just like that, concern returned to Jet's face as if Faye had that kind of power, as if she could awaken Lazarus with the sound of her voice.

"I just want to talk to her," she said with a shrug and walked away. Spike took a long drag from her cigarette.

"What happens after this?" Jet's repressed anger began to surface. Spike didn't move or acknowledge the question. Jet walked toward Spike and glared at him for a while, his dark eyes narrowed and his brow muscles tensed and crumpled. Spike took one last drag and simply glared back. Jet grabbed him by his shirt collar and pressed the force of his arm against Spike's body.

"Answer me. What happens? She's not going to stop it. You know it. We all know it. She wants to die and take the whole damn place with her!" The cigarette had fallen on the ground, the red flame consuming it slowly to ashes.

"Jet," Spike said, "Just because I've wanted to die doesn't mean I know what she's thinking. It doesn't mean I know how to stop her." After that comment, Jet punched him, not with all his strength, but enough to make Spike's cheek instantly begin to swell. Jet would have hit him again if Spike hadn't dodged causing Jet's fist to embed itself in the metal beam. Jet didn't move his hand, but left it indented there, as if his anger were electric and the metal were consuming it.

"I'm sorry, Jet," Spike said followed by heavy sigh. Jet's head slumped about to sob, but instead he pulled away from the beam.

Without looking at Spike, he said, "I know," and left the room.

Spike reached towards his cheek which finally throbbed from the force of the punch. He winced at the pain, but found it a relief. It was a relief to feel something physical, something real, something that anchored him back to life without sinking in that familiar state of numbness. He hated being numb. Numbness to him equated with death creeping from behind, holding him, controlling him and pushing out everything else.

He glanced to the window to take a closer look at his cheek. In the red reflection of the planet below him, he saw his own face warping out of shape. He closed his eyes while the throbbing moved onto the lower part of his jaw as well. He turned away from his reflection and headed toward the galley where Jet kept the first aid kit. As he passed one of the halls near the common room, he heard both female voices talking softly to each other.

"What does this mean, Faye-faye," Ed asked in the tone of a disappointed and defeated child.

"Nothing, Ed. Just that you should go to earth to find your dad again. That's important, you know." Faye sounded exasperated, but too tired or too sorry to get angry in her usual way with Ed.

"But Ed doesn't want to leave." Ed was about to cry, and Ein whimpered.

"You won't have to, right away, but in the end, you really should." Faye's tone had changed. It was adult and demanding. She was no longer addressing Ed, but herself.

Spike forced himself to keep walking and continue on his quest for aspirin. He knew this whole thing with Faye would turn out like this anyway. No human being can take what they all had endured in the last sixty hours, hell, the last few years, and on top of that bear the burden of genocide, and still want to stick around. Spike chose to take his aspirin, sit in the common room with his eyes closed, and wait for an entire city to explode and for their lives to blast to hell with it.

"You should put something on that." He heard Faye say and he groggily opened his eyes to look at her. He realized he had drifted in some kind of half-sleep state. "Go to my room," she said, "I'll bring some stuff to fix it up." Spike wanted to stare at her for a while longer and try to decipher what that meant. He would go to her room and then what? Then—she would get closure.

After a few minutes of waiting in her room, she came in with a pan of water in one hand, the small first aid duffel bag hanging from the crook of her arm and also an ice pack for his face. He had been waiting for her by the door, but when she set everything down, she instructed him to sit on her bed.

"It was Jet," she said as she gently placed the ice pack on his cheek. He flinched and she responded with a slight frown. "We've sure been a hell of a lot of trouble for him. God, I never thought it'd be worse than when he lost all of his clothes to me and was left with nothing but his boxers for a week." She chuckled and let Spike hold the ice pack instead. He watched her while she pulled out some bandages and other supplies from the first aid kit. He had never seen her laugh so sadly—cynically, yes, hypocritically, of course, but not remorsefully.

She set the water on the table next to her bed. With a towel, she began to clean the rest of his face and his neck, first with disinfectant and then with the lukewarm water. She then undid the bandages of his free hand and cleaned it as well as his arm, and then wrapped it in new cloth. Spike switched hands and she repeated the same procedure with his other one. Faye did everything calmly, as if she had done it many times before and as if there was nothing else she'd rather be doing. Spike remembered that as far as he'd known Faye had bandaged and tended for him twice before. He had been unconscious while she had done it and there was something pleasant about watching her care for him finally.

She didn't seem to mind his staring. Her pale green yes focused only on his wounds, but he could still see her face in its entirety and feel the closeness of her warm body. He saw that like his own face, hers was a bit dirty from the fall, but smoother and still gleaming. She had dark and slightly puffed bags under her eyes and not a trace of make-up. It was the first time he had ever seen just her—just her, up close and somehow so feminine—like she had nothing else to hide and he could finally see her. Some of her lashes were still slightly clumped together from the tears and he spotted the hint of dimples when she chuckled earlier. Her lips, though, seemed to tell what she had been through in the last two days. They were pale, dry and a bit cracked. She noted his glare on her lips and moistened them, and they glistened with a hint of pink.

After Faye was done dressing his wounds, she moved on to do the same for herself, starting with her hands and then moving on to her face. She tried to pull up her soiled shirt to get at the wound on her back, but she winced and gave a low hiss.

"Here, let me help." Spike put down the ice pack and grabbed the bandages and disinfectant. At first, she let go of her shirt and for a few seconds neither of them moved. Finally, she pulled it off completely—gasping at the pain—revealing a simple white cotton sports bra and a lower back caked with blood.

"Maybe you should take a pain killer first." She shook her head.

"Already took some. There's no point," she said. The wound was a mess and had opened up in two small places, which required him to spend sometime trying to glue it together which hurt even more. She stayed completely silent through the whole process, though the contours of her back shifted slightly whenever it was too painful or whenever the cold disinfectant caused a shiver. He wiped the rest of her back, tracing the long groove of her spine, under the shoulder blades and down around her curved sides.

After he was done, she pointed to her black duffel bag sitting on the ground opposite of the bed and he reached and retrieved another loose shirt. It was a button down blouse, a little fancy around the florid v-neck, but comfortable enough for her to put on. As she buttoned her shirt, he grabbed his ice pack and turned to leave, but she took hold of his hand.

"Stay," she said, but didn't look at him. "Lay down with me."

Spike breathed in deep, not exactly knowing how to approach her offer, but as usual, something superseded his decision.

"Oh god," she whispered and pressed the palm of her hand against her chest. She sat there, frozen, eyes full of panic.

"Faye?" he uttered in fear, like a little child unaware of everything around him. He knelt down in front of her and grasped her shoulders, searching her facial features for some kind of clue.

"Listen," she told him and her hand reached for him and pulled him to her. With one ear pressed against her chest, he could hear what she must have been feeling. The beat was sporadic, the heart knocking heatedly and then dying down.

"You better lay down," he said meeting her weary eyes with his own worried glance.

"Yeah, I feel kind dizzy." She lay down on her good side, which forced her to face the wall. "What if she lied? What if it kills me anyway?" Faye whispered. He didn't know how to respond, but simply lay on the bed next to her. He wrapped his arms around her—one beneath the weight of her body and the other curved around her waist, not too close to her wound. He felt so warm and so tired as he held her.

"What's your real name?" she asked him as she placed her arm around his.

"What do you mean?" He pressed his face against her hair and breathed in a mixture of sweat and floral kind of scent.

"Well, no mother would name their kid Spike." She had meant to sound cynical, but it came out in a low rueful tone.

"No, they wouldn't." He searched his memory for that name. It was odd that he could forget it so easily, but it had been years since he had thought about it. Spike always thought he had an excellent memory, but lately, he had begun think he had gotten shot one too many times. "I don't think I remember."

"That's sad," she said, "To not remember. It's such an important part to forget." He wanted to ask her what her real last name was, but he hesitated too long and she spoke again. "Do you remember your mother?"

"Yeah."

"That's good," a long pause and then, "Spike?"

"Hmm?" He felt himself drifting off in the comfort of her warmth.

"A while ago, you told me you saw Julia. Did you really?" She sounded afraid.

"Yeah." He should have lied, but lying took too much energy.

"What did she look like?" It was an innocent tone of voice, not really knowing what she was asking.

"She looked like the day she died. Tired, sad and numb." He held Faye tighter and she flinched. He quickly increased the space between them to avoid her wound.

"Do you see her still?" Faye asked.

"Sometimes." He thought it would be more uncomfortable talking about Julia with Faye, but at the moment, it was like he could just say it without any problem. "I don't want to anymore. I feel like I'm going crazy."

"She'll leave one day," she said and he nodded. "Spike? Stay with me until I fall asleep. I want to stay like this a little longer, because," a deep sigh, "When this is over I won't be able to be near you, to look at you. I couldn't. Not after it happens." He knew it had been coming and though it still hurt him, he was numb enough that all he could do was agree with her and listen as her breathing became rhythmic and slow.

He stayed with her for two hours while she slept and every so often, tears would emerge from her closed eyelids. He'd felt them when he placed his hand on her cheek and felt her eyelashes move against the tips of his fingers and then a moist sensation. Spike pried himself away from her, gently pulling his arm from under her, kissing her cheek, her forehead and finally her lips. He had brushed her soft hair with his fingers and caressed her arm, and then stood up. Faye didn't make a sound, but remained in that rhythmical heavy breathing. It was a drugged sleep. She had taken a sedative.

For some reason, the moment his mind acknowledged that, he slumped against her bed and his eyes began to water. Spike Spiegel felt the sting of silent tears that sprung from his eyes without hesitance, or fear, or anything. He had never felt so much in his life, so much of everything. He never thought he could lose more in his life. So Spike sat by her bedside and wept for his parents, for Julia, for Faye, for the damn city and for his life. He rubbed his eyes, angry at his own pitiable demeanor, and quickly recalled the throbbing cheek again. He welcomed the pain. It was a distraction from whatever emotions were choking him at the throat. Composing himself, he dried his eyes completely and stepped out from the darkness of the room and into the hallway.

"Spike-person," Ed hissed the minute he passed through the door. "Come! Jet won't listen to Ed, but Ed found something."

"Ed, it's fine. You don't have to worry about it anymore," Spike began to say, but Ed interjected.

"No, come!" Ed's eyes rounded with frustration as though she might cry, so with a sigh, Spike complied with her wishes. Ed immediately brightened and grasped his hand. She led him to the empty bridge where she had moved all her computer contraptions. She then sat down and pointed at the screen.

"The weird signal from earlier, it's back, and this time Ed found it." Ein barked at him and Ed grinned.

"What are you talking about?" He knew this had been a bad idea. He didn't speak Ed or dog.

"Don't you see, silly-bean? Ed found the transmitter!" She pointed at a red pulsing wave on the screen as Spike felt his heart jump from his chest and the pain from his cheek drain to nothing. He glanced at his watch; he had less than four hours left.

"Ed, are you sure?" Spike glanced at the screen again.

"Yes, as sure as a poodle!" Ed giggled, and Ein whimpered. "It grew stronger," Ed added, "Just like Faye's."

"Can you find it?" He now grabbed the girl by the shoulders, and she just grinned. He released her, and she made a high-pitched noise and typed away at her keyboard.

"Corner of 15th and," she paused dragging the 'and' through it, "Lucas avenue!"

"That's the middle of the city." Spike ran out of the room, but before he left, he turned to her and said, "Kid, you really are genius."

A girl and her dog save the world, he thought amusedly. Hadn't he said something about that sometime before? It was because Ed was a genius. Ed was the miracle he had been waiting for. With a renewed sense of determination, Spike went into the weapons' room, grabbed two extra guns and holstered them on belt he placed around his shoulders. He also grabbed a few grenades and put them in his jacket pocket. He would blow the transmitter to hell if that's what it took. He could stop this. He actually had the chance to stop this. He would save them. As soon as he finished loading up, he left and walked fast-paced through the hallway leading to the hangar.

"Where are you going?" He stopped. He turned around to face Julia leaning against the metal wall. Her red lips glistened under the dim lights of the Bebop.

"I don't have time for you," he said and resumed walking, but she rushed in front of him.

"Why are you going? What about her?" He could see his own reflection in her light blue eyes.

"This will save her, don't you see?" She frowned and her lips parted, but before she could say anything Spike continued. "I couldn't save you, Julia. Neither of us wanted to be saved. If Vicious lived, we knew we'd always hide in fear. If he died, we knew the guilt and hate would consume us. We couldn't help that." Julia nodded, pressed her lips to a smile, and then leaned in and kissed him on his unharmed cheek.

"I hope she saves you. That's all I've ever hoped for." The kiss had felt warm, almost real, but just almost.

"Bye Julia," he said to her.

"What are you doing?" Spike heard Jet's voice from behind him and slowly turned to face his old partner. Another interruption was making his time costlier.

"Jet," Spike began.

"You're leaving." Jet's muscles tensed with anger.

"Ed found it. The transmitter—we know where it is." Jet's eyes widened and he patted his vest for his gun.

"How much time?" He rushed toward Spike. "I'm going with you. Where is it?"

"Jet." The old cop stopped suddenly. "I don't know how to stop it, but I," Spike said searching in his mind for the right words. How many times had he done the same thing to this man?

"You're going to blow it up," he said.

"And if it doesn't work, I won't have time to," _Just say it for Christ's sake_, Spike scolded himself.

"You're going there to die." Jet looked away from him, his jaw clenched. Spike smirked.

"Jet, this is nothing like last time." Jet cleared his throat and shrugged.

"Is it?" Jet asked with a sad boyish smile on his face. Then the seriousness returned. "Go," he said rubbing his bald head. "You better hurry." His hand fell and he glanced at Spike. Just as he reached the hangar, he heard the old cop mutter, "I'll save you some food." Spike sighed and boarded his monoracer.

As the Swordfish II glided down into the atmosphere of the Mars, there were a billion regrets running through his mind. It was the first time in his life there was any emotional thought-process before he pulled one of his stunts. In a way, part of him knew he would survive. He had this invincibility complex for a while, but then again, maybe he just didn't give a shit then whether he lived or die.

His heart seemed to pound heatedly, reminding him he was alive, reminding him that he wanted to stay that way. It pounded with desperation, because his skin, his veins, his whole body knew that this would really be the end of him if he didn't succeed. Even if he escaped, it would be the end of him.

He descended into Alba's skies. The city, quiet and still in the darkness, glowed white from the street lights and the buildings. There were few cars traversing through the highways, a bit more on the main roads, but it hummed with kind of passive doom.

He hovered above downtown and searched for the intersection. On the corner of Lucas and 15th, he spotted six major buildings visible. Four of them were fairly small, small firms and businesses with offices on the floor above. On one of the tallest skyscrapers in the distance, he could see a scrolling sign that set curfew at eight at night. He only had a few more minutes before that time.

Spike decided to park on the roof of the one currently undergoing renovations. He made his bet on that ten-story fenced-in building, surrounded by cement, wood and bricks—the walls peeling with paint, the plastic covering openings flapping with the wind and the ends of the red 'danger' ribbons hissing like snakes from several corners.

Most of the stairs were still intact, so he jumped from floor to floor with a flashlight scanning for anything that might be a bomb, but decided to skip right to the bottom floor, where she most likely installed before they started the renovations. He searched through rubble, rummaged through boxes and underneath plastic coverings. Then he began knocking on the half-done walls.

"Stop," a voice said. A chill rippled throughout his body. "It's in there. If you knock it too hard you might hit it," Alyssa said nearing him. He hadn't heard her steps. He hadn't even known where she had come from.

"What are you doing here?" Was she here to stop it, he asked himself. He focused the flash light on him, but she didn't flinch. His eyes had already grown accustomed to the dim lighting of the street lights, but he wanted to see her face. He wanted to see what she was thinking, and maybe the extra light might reveal that.

"Look," she moved toward him, grabbing a brick from the floor. He moved away, grabbing his gun and pointing it at her. She hit the wall lightly with the brick, then pulled at the broken wood and cardboard and revealed a black plastic box the size of cereal box. On the top of it, it had a strange metal mechanism and a blinking red light. "I didn't lie. They're actually armed." She dropped the brick on the floor and looked around. "This building has been sitting here like this for a while. They kind of just abandoned it in the last six months, because the company went public and their stocks didn't do so well. They nearly went into bankruptcy."

"So you just found random abandoned buildings and put bombs on them?" Spike said cynically, still aiming his gun at her.

"No, it was harder than you think, but I had help. That doesn't matter though," she said looking out to the front, which still had tall glass walls that faced the fence in the front.

"Why are you here?" Spike said, examining her. She was wearing a loose black dress that reached above her knees. From her neck dangled the small silver cross tied with a thin black ribbon to her neck.

"Waiting for you. I was going to call you in one more hour, but you got ahead of me." Her shoulders sagged.

"The transmitter is in that one, isn't it? If I just shoot it," he said pointing the gun toward it.

"Don't be stupid." She stood between the gun and the bomb, holding the tip of the barrel with her hand. Her sudden action scared him. He was afraid of this girl standing there, holding his gun, completely unafraid of everything. That look in her eyes reminded him of something. That soft sad look—it was as if he was looking at Julia. His heart beat at his throat, the fear growing like a cancerous lump there. "I want to talk to you, just a little bit," she said.

"We don't have time! How do I stop it?" He shook the gun away from her hand, and stepped back, aiming it at her.

"Like that," she said in a low tone.

"Spike!" He stopped the minute he heard a third voice from behind him. "What the fuck are you doing?" Faye said, bewilderment in her green eyes, her gun trembling in her hand. She spotted Alyssa, eyes widening, and stopped. "What is this?" She stood next to him.

"I need to ask you something," Alyssa said. "What did my father do? I mean, to get an assassination order on him?"

Faye glanced at Spike. Her eyes search for another kind of answer that he didn't have, so he focused on just responding to Alyssa.

"No, is that what you think? He didn't do anything. He died protecting you." Spike shook his head. He didn't know what the hell was going on. He glanced at the blinking red light and then at his watch. He couldn't make out the time.

Alyssa gave a slight chuckle at his response. "Protecting me, huh?" She shook her head. The rage that had ebbed back into her from when he first met her re-emerged. "My father? He never protected me. He saw me for what I was. A genius of memory. I could memorize his plans and draw them out like stick figures at the age of five. Other kids were making their stupid family portraits, and I was drawing out schematics of bombs."

"What?" Spike said and then tried to shake the confusion away. "How do we shut it off, Alyssa?" He pointed over her shoulder with the flashlight.

"The transmitter is not in there. I changed those schematics." Alyssa smiled somberly.

"Where is it?" Hope sank the bottom of his stomach. Alyssa glanced at Faye, which only made Faye point her gun at her. Faye's pink lips quivered and her eyes stared back at Alyssa with dread.

"It's in me," Alyssa answered placing her hand on her chest. Faye gasped and Spike dropped his flashlight and nearly his gun.

"What did you say?" He asked not knowing whether to fear this answer or to feel relieved by it.

"I designed in a similar way to the ticker in Faye. It's a foolproof method. It's what Sirius wanted me to adjust. Nathan perfected the design for the bomb and I switched it to model the Mtrace in Faye." She clasped her hands in front of her and stared at the ground for a while. Neither Spike nor Faye said anything. He didn't know what to say. He didn't know what to do. Shoot her, a voice in him told him, but he was shaking and didn't know what to do.

"Why?" Faye finally asked.

"Because there was no other way to do this, unless he believed me." Alyssa glanced at Spike and with her eyes she told him what he needed to do.

"You did this to commit suicide? You did all this to kill yourself? What kind of fucking," Spike yelled, but Faye placed her hand on his shoulder bringing him to quiet down.

"I've given you no other choice. I saved your life, Spike, so please do this for me," she whispered.

"Notre pere qui est aux cieux..." She kneeled on the ground still staring at him. Spike could feel Faye's hand trembling on top of his shoulder. All this, so Alyssa could die just like her father. All this to play pretend. All this so he would shoot her. He should have done it from the beginning. He could have stopped her from the beginning, but as she prayed his own hand holding the gun ached. It ached and stung and felt like it was being stretched away from his body.

"Amen," she said glaring at him and closing his eyes. Then he thought, and if she's lying? If she was lying, then it didn't matter anymore. He moved toward her, Faye's hand falling from his body, taking a deep breath and forcing his aim steady. Alyssa looked at him with her deep dark eyes, regarded him sadly but scornfully. She'd begun crying. The rivulets fell to the corners of her mouth and some past her chin. She closed her eyes, and he glanced back at the blinking red light. His breathing became heavy and fast and he aimed at her chest. He studied her frame, her hair falling at her shoulders, her small body kneeled, and chin held up. He burned her image in his mind and pulled the trigger.

The bullet pierced right through her and for a second she became inert and then flimsy as she hit the ashen ground. Her curls had spread underneath her, and her shirt quickly flooded with blood. Faye let out a gasp and then a groan. Spike whipped around to find her with hands and knees on the ground.

"Something's happening," she said hoarsely, struggling to breathe. She gripped a fistful of her shirt at her chest. He fell to his knees beside her as the pressure of dread built up inside him.

"What is it?" He tried to help her to a sitting position, but she wouldn't budge.

"Shit," she whispered and collapsed in his arms. He flipped her body over and checked her pulse. It was a little fast, but it was there. With a sudden jolt of awareness, his eyes darted in the direction of the bomb. All he saw was the box, sitting in the darkness, the red light no longer blinking. With Faye still his lap, he scrambled to reach for the flashlight. He pointed it at the bomb, the white light glistening against the black glossy surface of the plastic. He moved the light to his watch still counting down. They had barely an hour left. Spike dropped the flashlight and held onto Faye tightly, his face against her warm face, his chest against hers. He couldn't move. He couldn't let her go. Not until those last minutes past. He sat there like that for the remainder of the time, sometimes sobbing, sometimes just breathing her in. When he felt the time draw near, he shut eyes and gripped her body even tighter. There was a low mechanical hum from his watch and he opened his eyes again, grabbing the flashlight and pointing it at the bomb and then at the time. Zeros flashed on the small digital screen.

They were safe; she hadn't lied. She had planned it this way. All this time, this was what she had wanted. Anger couldn't enter him at the moment, he was too relieved, too achy and too worried about Faye to let the guilt and rage seep through. He lifted Faye in his arms and climbed the steps to his monoracer. Once he reached it, he called Jet, watched his facial expression in frenzy of confusion, sadness and relief. He asked him to come help pick Faye up. But before Jet could get there, a patrol of the ISSP arrived muttering something about curfew. He asked if Faye was all right, but Spike just shook his head. A set of six air patrols arrive, one of them an anti-terrorist SWAT unit and they all landed on the building. An ambulance followed quickly after that and they took her from him. They asked him some questions, and he couldn't answer. He couldn't think.

"Where are you taking her?" Spike asked.

"He's in shock," someone next to Faye's stretcher said. "We should take him with us."

They started examining him and asking more questions, but he was able to be near Faye. They tended to his face and the rest of his wounds, and they told him to get inside the ambulance.

"Wait," Spike said pointing to one of the officers. The cop walked over to him. "There's a girl down there. She was shot, dead. She was your terrorist." The guy glared at him for a minute, the red lights pulsing on his face, and then he turned back to one of the SWAT members, who picked up the phone. Then both came over back to him.

"The girl's name, what is it?" The other black-vested anti-terrorist cop asked.

"Alyssa Reve," Spike said dejectedly. The man's eyes widened as if the name meant something to him.

"Who are you?" he asked Spike.

"Just a bounty hunter after the bounty, but it didn't work out," Spike answered with smirk and a shrug. The black-vested officer made some kind of head motion and Spike was ushered into the ambulance.

* * *

"What happened?" Jet asked, sitting next to Spike in a small section of the ER. Spike had been tended to there, but Faye had gotten her own room after being taken to several different floors for one exam or another. Spike wasn't sure what Jet wanted to know, after all it had been him that had taken care of the rest of the cops, so they must have told him something. Jet hadn't referred to Faye either, because they had just been informed by the triage nurse about Faye's condition. The doctors said her heart had an odd reaction to a sedative in her system, but that she should wake up soon. They could go see her when they wanted to. The doctor had tried to convince Spike to take some pain killers that would allow him to rest, but he had shaken his head. He didn't trust any doctors he didn't know. 

"Spike, what happened?" Jet repeated his question. Spike glanced all around him and remembered that Faye probably hated the white of these hospitals.

"I killed her," Spike answered suddenly. "All that time it was the only choice I really had."

In part, Spike understood her, but he still hated her—hated her for using him, for making him do this, but he could imagine her thoughts. It was those same thoughts he'd had all his life every time someone pointed a gun at him. He would throw himself through the shots, partly because he felt invulnerable or invisible and the other part because he didn't care, and he'd always survive. He had been angry, if only for a moment, after he realized the look on Alyssa's face that he had burned into his mind. He'd seen it in Vicious, in Julia and in the mirror, and he finally recognized what it was. His life had been filled with people who wanted to die, except for Faye, the magical sleeping fairy tale with the need and infatuation to live. Spike wanted to be consumed in that.

"It's sad," Jet said and when Spike turned to him, he shook his head apologetically as if the old cop had made a mistake by unknowingly speaking aloud.

"What's sad?" Spike asked, though he could guess the answer.

"I can't help but feel sorry for someone that had to go through all that just to die. I thought it would make me much angrier than this." Jet turned to him, his gaze a heavy weight on Spike.

"I think I've changed," responded Spike.

"You'd think," Jet shook his head. "You'd hope," he whispered. They stood in silence for a few minutes and Jet finally asked if he was going to see Faye.

"In a bit," Spike said. Jet narrowed his eyes at him, but shrugged and headed to her room. Spike grabbed his jacket which they had put under the gurney and headed toward the staircase. The emergency room was located at the top of the hospital, because most ambulances were aerial. He climbed one set of stairs to the roof and watched as the creases of dark red in the clouds began to signal dawn. Spike rubbed his eyes and focused them again on a figure he had spotted near at one end of the roof. He was certain. It was Faye.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" Spike said, standing next to her. She turned to him with an unreadable expression.

"You're here," she said and looked toward the horizon again. "The city, it's still here too." Then with a shrug, she added, "I hate stupid hospitals. You shouldn't have brought me here."

"I know, but they didn't give me a choice." He looked at her the strands of hair flying with the wind. She would pull a lock of her behind her ear, but it always proved fruitless. "I remember my name now," he said. "I remembered in the hospital bed." She glanced at him, her green eyes full and bright.

"Don't tell me yet. Tell me later, when it gets a little better." She smirked. "Just write it down somewhere, before you forget it again. God knows you've been hit on the head too many times." She laughed and he shook his head. Her laughter was followed by a long pause. They heard the sounds of traffic and distant noises of construction. The city was beginning to awaken.

"You know, it's funny," she said, stepping closer to him and staring at the horizon. "On earth the sun sets on the West, and here it rises there."

They both glanced at the sky and stood there as the colors rose and metamorphosed from red to orange and then pink and purple and finally, the clouds whitened and the sun hung like an incandescent lamp against the calm blue.


End file.
